


Wake

by Sunnepho



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen, Mystery, Psychological Drama, Soldiers, Wutai
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-22
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2017-11-08 08:06:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 154,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/441036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunnepho/pseuds/Sunnepho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being stuck in his own head wasn't pleasant at the best of times. The delirium of mako poisoning didn't help. Through memories of a war he wasn't sure he actually lived through, Cloud learned to... deal. Pre-game, semi-AU off Crisis Core events.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Green Walls

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and settings are property of Square Enix. No profit is being made from the writing of this fanfiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
> 
> Warnings: Some violence, couple of OCs. No pairings.
> 
> Summary: Being stuck in his own head wasn't pleasant at the best of times. The delirium of mako poisoning didn't help. Through memories of a war he wasn't sure he actually lived through, Cloud learned to... deal. Pre-game, semi-AU off Crisis Core events.
> 
> Additional warning: This is written solely for my own entertainment. That and because I cannot effing concentrate on what I'm supposed to be studying while it's in my mind. This means there will probably be silliness and melodrama. No attempt at a serious artistic endeavour, so proceed at your own risk.

Part 1 - **Green walls**

**  
**

He can't breathe, he realizes.

He can't really move at all, actually. His fingers do this feeble little twitch when he tries to raise his hand, his eyes feel like bloated duck eggs scraping against his sandpaper eyelids, and his tongue is huge and trying to suffocate him by stuffing itself down his throat. What a stupid way to die.

His thoughts drift away from him, darting around like the little minnows in the creek that winds around the mountain just outside...

He can't remember.

It's home. He can't remember.

He can't breathe, he realizes.

His mouth falls open with a little croak, and he sucks greedily at the air.

There's a gasp, somewhere on his right side, and then a loud creak. He recognizes the sound of tortured wood. It probably hasn't been waterproofed very well, and the damp has wound its way into the fibres until they rot away, collapsing into tiny pockets of mush. It'll seep and seep until it's all eaten, leaving holes and gaps that can't even be called clean. Filled with useless shit. Kind of like his brain.

He grabs onto his decaying thoughts for a moment, and then he lets them go.

His head hurts like something's trying to pound his eyes out of their sockets from the inside, and he wonders what it'd look like. Some kind of offensive little troll with big saggy balls, probably, hammering away with its fists.

The bed—it's probably a bed; feels like a bed, although he can't remember the last time he had a bed, so maybe he's wrong—sags a bit, like someone's leaning over him. And then everything in his head is screaming because he feels cold, smooth metal under his back, and the air is thick like water gushing into his mouth and nose and ears.

It's not. The bit inside him that's panicking is what's left of the weedy little kid, slamming his fists against the glass of the tank. It's not. It's a bed. It's too soft, and it smells a bit musty. He feels heat against his shoulder, like a touch hovering just beyond contact.

"Cloud? Are you awake?"

His eyes won't open much, but there's a little gap there, and he can sort of see.

There's a low concrete ceiling, shot through with spider web cracks, and there are big dark eyes peering at him.

There's a green glow on everything, like some demented interior decorator had gone and poured radioactive neon paint on every surface of the room. It's not until he can't keep his eyes open any more, and they slide shut, that he remembers. It's still green. It's always green because of his eyes.

Too bad. He used to kind of like green.

He can't really breathe.

* * *

He'd seen the ocean before, when he was brought along on that vacation to Costa del Sol. Granted, he was only there because he was supposed to be guarding the president, but old man Shinra spent most of his time on the beach, and he could only stare at that lardy ass for so long, right?

The ocean there was really blue, and he remembered the heat of the sand under his feet. There were seagulls screaming in the sky, and babes in bikinis smiling at him from the water.

 _This_ ocean was pretty thoroughly uninviting. The water was so blue it was nearly black, and the waves were choppy and tipped with white. There weren't any seagulls around here. Probably all got eaten by monsters.

A couple of foot soldiers were hauling cargo up a plank extending from the side of one of the ships, and the one holding the lower end of the crate started cussing loudly when they teetered and started the plank shaking.

An old sergeant was ticking off a clipboard at the base of the plank, and when he saw the soldiers stagger, he raised the board and shook it as if he wanted to hurl it at the grunts.

"The fuck are you doing, you little sacks of prissy shit?" he bellowed. "You think Shinra pays you to prance around like little girls? If you drop that crate, I'll take it out of your fuckin' asses!" His neck was bright red from exertion by now, and he looked like he turned an even brighter red when he shuffled around and caught sight of his observer. "Who the hell are you?"

"Soldier Second Class Cloud Strife," Cloud said, bouncing a bit on the balls of his feet. "I'm, er..." He glanced around at the fleet of ships, masts bristling in the water like a flattened pin-cushion.

"Soldiers are on that ship over there, the Mary-Anne," the sergeant grunted, quiet now that he recognized Cloud's uniform.

"Gotcha, thanks."

"First time being deployed, son?"

"That obvious?" Cloud grinned, rubbing his fingers against the back of his neck.

The sergeant grunted again, and crossed his arms. "You kids are always piss-pants excited, until you get there and some wacko ninja is trying to lop your head off. I've been on and off the field with this company for the last forty years, and I've seen plenty of dumb Soldiers get sent home in little boxes."

Cloud blinked at the old man.

The sergeant sighed. "Look, watch your back out there, right? Wutai's all trees or bare-ass mountains, and them ninjas know how to hide like nobody's business. You wouldn't know they'd surrounded you until they were on top of you."

Cloud dropped his hand to the hilt of his sword, strapped tightly to his back. He gripped it now, and he nodded.

The man eyed him for a moment, mouth twisted in a grimace, and then he said, "Strife, right? They stopped boarding Soldiers about ten minutes ago. You'd better holler up to get them to drop the ladder again."

"Oh, nah. I'm good." Cloud jogged to the edge of the harbour, his sword clinking a little bit as it tapped against his belt. He tensed at the last step, the muscles bunching in his legs and bursts of mako energy pulsing in response, and then he was flying. The ground dropped away sharply behind him, and the sergeant's upturned face shrank until he was just a pink blob. Cold wind funnelled into his ears, nearly blocking out the yell at his back. He spread his arms wide at the apex of his jump, relishing the feeling of being carried by nothing by air, high up enough to vault his old house back at home in the mountains. Then, the black of the transport ship spread out below him, and he loosened his knees to absorb the shock of his landing.

There was a surprised shout from the deck of the ship, but then he was already leaning forward and catching himself with a hand as he thumped onto the pebbled metal.

"Fuck, Strife! Warn a guy before you try to give him a heart attack!"

"Sorry, Travers."

"You sunovabitch, you're not sorry at all!"

Cloud glanced over the railing while Travers was trying to put him into a headlock, he was digging his thumb hard into the pressure point at the base of the guy's hand to stop him, and they were spinning around in circles on the deck like lunatics. The old sergeant had a funny expression on his face, but Cloud waved anyway.

The man looked like he snorted before he turned back to the cargo ship.

* * *

Below decks, the ship was outfitted just like the barracks back in Midgar. Narrow bunks lined the even narrower corridors, and a little stretchy mesh strip was sewn onto the bottoms of the pallets for the Soldiers to stow their belongings.

Every bed Cloud could see was occupied, but judging by the dead silence and the way the Thirds were eyeballing him in their peripheral vision, he was the only Second in the area. He checked his pack quickly: extra uniform, standard; battered aluminum kit, standard; porno mag... He was going to strangle Kunsel next time he saw him.

He quickly rolled up the magazine and stuck it into his back pocket, torn between tossing it overboard immediately and stashing it in Angeal's pack and waiting to see the man's expression when he found it.

Unbuckling the harness that held his sword to his back, Cloud leaned it against the wall within easy reach. He didn't bother kicking off his boots, instead letting his feet dangle off the end of his bunk as he lay back and laced his fingers behind his head on the thin pillow. The wire springs over his head sagged a little in the centre and then squeaked when the upper bunk's occupant shifted. Another moment of silence, and then there was a violent squeal before the Third overhead dropped lightly to the ground.

Cloud watched the guy—mid-twenties, built a bit like an ox—while the Third paused for a moment. Then he straightened up and loped down the row of beds without looking at Cloud once. Cloud stifled a snort, and he closed his eyes.

Only a couple of minutes passed before he heard heavy footsteps clank against the panelling of the floor. Cloud kept his eyes closed and listened. Multiple sets of footsteps. Three people. Long, deep whoosh of air. Big guy, big lungs. Tiny whisper of cloth. Disciplined; little wasted movement. Standing right by his head. Probably not a Third.

Cloud looked up into Travers's face.

Travers rolled his eyes. "You know, if you hadn't been so late, you would have gotten a room on the Seconds' deck."

"Maybe I like it better here," Cloud said blandly. "These guys are probably plenty more fun than you assholes."

Evans edged around Travers to lean against the pole supporting the upper bunks. "You could probably stay with Angeal. I heard the officers get a couch in their cabins."

Cloud thought about it for a moment, and then he grimaced. "Pass, thanks. There's a limit even to my affection."

Travers snickered. "He'd talk about honour and pride the whole night, wouldn't he?"

"Nah, he's not that bad."

Travers smacked his palm against Cloud's knee. "Move, Strife, before I sit on you."

Cloud scowled. "Ever hear of asking nicely, douchebag?" He sat up anyway.

"There's not enough room for us all to stand around. What, were you standing behind the door when they were passing out brains?"

Cloud watched as Travers sprawled over the head of his bed, leaning back on one hand and covering a yawn with the other.

Edward Travers had been on his team during his evaluation for Soldier Second. The man had about five years on Cloud, and he'd been a Second then and would probably stay a Second. The evaluation had involved a leadership exercise after Cloud had gone through the physical and psychological tests, and so Cloud had led a small team of career Seconds on a retrieval mission in a minor terrorist base. Travers had challenged his authority immediately, and Cloud figured he was probably scripted to do so, but it had taken a violent shouting match and an impromptu scuffle before Travers had grinned at him, wiping the blood from his mouth, and said that he wouldn't tell about the fight if Cloud didn't. Cloud had protested that Travers threw the first punch anyway, but the asshole just laughed like he'd forgotten that he'd lost.

The next day, Cloud had just tried on his new purples when Travers burst in on him and dragged him down below the Plate to celebrate.

Evans sighed and scratched his head, where black stubble was starting to show from his shaved scalp. "Sorry, Strife."

Cloud had met Curtis Evans on a mission to the Junon area right after he'd made Second, when faulty information nearly got him and Kunsel killed. The MPs with them had already been killed by the feral monsters that roamed the area, and the anti-Shinra group they were looking for had rigged their base to detonate after locking Cloud and Kunsel in. It had taken all the thunder materia Cloud had to fry the locking mechanism, but that had also plunged them into complete darkness, so when they tore out of the building and raced toward cover, the explosion at their backs knocked them off their feet and blew out their eardrums. Evans had been the Second in charge of the rescue team, and he'd hauled Cloud onto his bike before bitching about him bleeding all over the leather the whole way back to Junon.

Cloud flipped Travers off casually, and the last member of the group rumbled a laugh through his chest.

His name was Peter Hoffe, the quietest, shyest seven-foot tall, three-hundred ten pound Soldier Third Cloud had ever met who could put together a M-4 carbine, including standard accessories, in about forty seconds. The other members of his squad called him Tiny, because if there was anything Cloud could say about Soldier humour, it was that it's predictable. He'd taken the Second evaluation the same time as Cloud, but he'd failed sometime before the leadership trial started, and he'd looked so relieved that Cloud didn't say anything.

"Why were you late, anyway?" Hoffe asked.

"Not that it's any of your business," Cloud said to Travers before turning around to grin at Hoffe, "but I was..." He faltered, his mind coming up blank.

The silence stretched out for a moment before Travers scoffed. "If you're trying to think up a good excuse, don't bother."

"No, I'm sure I..." Cloud frowned. There was an image, just out of reach in his mind. He scrabbled for it mentally, pale little claws glittering in the dark, and a stinging pain shot through his temple. "Ugh," he wheezed, digging his fingers into the side of his head.

There wasn't anything to see. Just blackness, and a girl's voice. "Jeez, Cloud, you shouldn't have slept in today."

"Yeah," said another kid's voice, snide and nasal, "we're already in groups, you know. You'll have to work alone. Again."

There was laughter, like the kid had said something uproariously funny.

Something stung in the back of his eye, and there was the sharp scent of snow in his nose.

Hands grabbed his shoulders.

Snow? Cloud tried to think over the din in his head. He hadn't seen snow until he made Soldier and got sent north on assignment. The smell of humid earth and chirps of jungle frogs darted through his memory.

The buzzing in his ears got louder.

The prickle of ice crystals melting against his skin.

"Strife?" Someone was shaking his shoulder.

The murky light of sun through leafy cover, parasitic flowers sitting high above in splashes of colour.

"Cloud!"

Cloud's eyes snapped open.

Evans peered down at him. "You okay?"

It took him a couple of seconds to remember how to move his muscles, but then he slid up toward the centre of his bed and shoved Travers onto the floor. "Yeah," he said over Travers's hissy fit. He stretched out on the bed, closed his eyes, and smiled. "Just a headache. Let me get some sack time, and I'll be fine."

They hovered for a moment, and Cloud could feel their stares. He waved a hand at them.

"Get lost. I'll be fine."

"Alright," Travers said finally. "We'll see you at mess."

"Yup." He heard the footsteps again, and when he called after them, he wasn't sure what kind of compulsion it was that made him open his mouth. "Hey, Evans?"

The steps paused. "Yeah?"

"I told you about where I came from, right?"

"Yeah. Nibelheim, right?" Evans said, slowly.

"Right." Cloud reached up, tracing a lopsided mountain range in the air. "Nothing there but a mako reactor and permafrost halfway up the mountain."

When it became apparent that Cloud wasn't going to say anything else, Travers snorted. "See you later, country boy."

It wasn't until after they were long gone that Cloud cracked open his eyes. His bunkmate was back, standing just below the ladder. The Third jumped a little when he met Cloud's eyes.

Cloud reached into his pocket. "Magazine?" he offered.

* * *

The ship made a stomach-turning rolling motion, accompanied by a long, low creak, and Cloud curled tighter on his bed.

The barracks were built like a box, shutting out all outside light. A couple of lanterns swayed at each end of the corridor, lending definition to the shadows, but Soldiers didn't really need them anyway. Shapes stood out in sharp relief, lined with a gritty green glow. Mako went everywhere, after the injections. Heightened senses, reflexes, strength... but it never left the eyes. Once, in a weird mood, Cloud had wondered if it was because of the light, like it was trying to escape or something. But there were easier ways of getting out. Aside from the green glow that washed over everything in low light, Soldiers tended to piss green for a little while, too, after an injection. Probably their bodies equilibrating or something. A particularly loud snore sawed at the air, and Cloud shut his eyes again.

He didn't hear anything this time, not that he probably could over the protests of his stomach, so when the fingers flattened knuckles down against his forehead, he flinched and pulled away.

He looked up at the man, half-stooped because he was too tall, standing by his head, and for a moment he saw a lopsided grin and a thin scar carved into a sharp jaw. Cloud's breath caught in his throat.

"I heard from Evans. Are you sick?"

Cloud blinked hard, and his vision settled. The jaw he saw widened and the forehead furrowed with gentle lines. He blinked again. "Angeal?"

"Were you asleep?"

"No," Cloud said, pulling himself up. "Where were you? Sir?"

"Conference call with Lazard. The Director mentioned that he'd be arriving at the front in a week or so. Looks like they're getting serious about finishing this war. We're assembling the entire Soldier department of ShinRa in Wutai." Angeal crossed his arms and suddenly made a face. "And Heidegger."

Cloud laughed, but it turned into a low moan, and he clutched at his stomach.

"Maybe you should get some air," Angeal said.

"Oh. Probably." Cloud shuffled for the half-open door, ignoring the way Angeal sighed and shook his head.

* * *

Cloud heard Angeal follow him, but the First didn't say anything when Cloud lurched for the railing and leaned his head over the side. He didn't do much of anything at all, besides carefully positioning himself upwind while he waited until Cloud had run out of stomach contents and was dry-heaving his guts out.

The water was very black at night, as if they were sailing through a pool of ink. It frothed in the wake of the ship, dirty white foam spreading outward in stringy loops like a cut sponge. He'd seen this before, Cloud thought. On the river that swelled to twice its size every spring, when meltwater poured into it from the mountains and carried anyway anything lighter than a Nibel wolf. He remembered blood dripping into his eyes and an arm bent back the wrong way while his mother screamed in his ear and held him close, even if his clothes were soaked and ruining her dress.

"You didn't use to get motion sick, did you?" Angeal asked suddenly.

"Huh?" Cloud said.

Angeal was frowning at him. "And you were late this morning, too. Honestly, Zack, what—"

Cloud spun around quickly enough that his boot slipped on a patch of spray and shot out from under him. He fell backward, head slamming into the railing hard enough it clanged.

"Cloud!" Angeal crouched in front of him, a hand tight on his shoulder.

Cloud hissed at the pain spreading down from his crown like molten syrup. He checked the hand he'd pressed against his scalp, but he saw no blood.

"What were you _doing_? Trying to crack your skull open?"

He looked up at Angeal, and he forced his gritted teeth apart. "Who's Zack?"

Angeal stared at him like he'd really knocked his marbles loose. "What?"

Cloud winced, pressing his palm back over his head. The ringing noise was subsiding, so that was probably just in his ears. It didn't explain the laughter he was hearing, though. It was a warm, deep sound, and then he tensed when a hand was pressed firmly against his back.

" _It'll be okay, Spiky. Just leave it to me."_

"What was that?" Cloud squinted at Angeal.

"What was what?" Angeal shook his head when Cloud glanced around, swaying slightly. "Alright, I'm taking you to the infirmary. You've probably got a concussion if you're hearing things."

The voice lingered in his mind like jet steam in the sky, diffusing a bit, but leaving clear trails as it etched its way across. It left faith in its wake, Cloud realized. He smiled.

"I'm really fine, Angeal."

"Right. I'm still taking you to the infirmary."

Cloud let Angeal lead him down below decks, feeling the phantom warmth of a wide hand over his shoulder blades.

* * *

"Heard you tried to jump overboard last night."

Cloud ignored Travers's grin. "Did not. I slipped and hit my head on the rail."

The ground felt a bit like it was still moving under his feet, but Cloud planted his boots firmly and tossed his duffel up onto the back of the truck with the others. Half dead scrubland stretched ahead, and the ocean was at his back.

"Was the railing alright?"

"Oh ha, you bastard."

Dust spin in little funnels over the ground, and long dead stalks of tall grasses crunched under the wheels of the trucks. Overhead, a raptor screamed.

The sand of the beach shifted under his boots and clogged up the treads. Cloud scowled down, kicking the heavy wheels of the truck to dislodge some of it. "How long did they say we'd travel by land?"

"Just a couple of days," Travers said. "We had to dock somewhere we couldn't be ambushed, but that means we're pretty far across the country from the front."

"Right. I'll go get—"

There was a short shriek, and then someone else yelled and the sound of machine gun cartridges emptying filled the air.

Cloud spun toward the sound, right into a whip of flying sand. "Argh!" He shielded his face, blinking his eyes rapidly as they teared up at the grit under his eyelids.

"The fuck is _that_?" Travers was slotting materia into his bracer as he stared down the beach.

It looked like a turtle, if turtles grew to be about the size of a small tank. Cloud wiped his face against his forearm, unlatched his sword from its sheath, and ran.

It had trampled someone, Cloud realized, seeing the splash of black-red on one of its horny-toed feet. Something glistened unpleasantly, wound around the shield-sized foot, but it quickly turned a dirty dust colour as sand stuck fast to its moist surfaces.

The monster made a hoarse croaking noise, and it turned to slam its shell into another soldier. Streaks of blood covered the sharp spines at the edge of its shell.

A fireball whirled past Cloud, detonating against the creature's shell and leaving black soot in its wake.

"Keep distracting it for me!"

Cloud ducked another fireball and rolled under the monster's tail as it spun around. He swung his sword up in a steep arc, but the turtle skittered back surprisingly quickly, and Cloud only managed to slice an oozing gash across its mouth. He slammed a hand into the ground and used the recoil to half-tumble, half-hop away. The monster's foot thudded into the ground where his head had been.

Cloud threw himself forward into a roll and managed to come up running.

A flurry of thunder spells hit the monster's head, leaving patches of burn marks on the grizzled skin. It stamped its feet, turning first one way and then the other, its eyes rolling at the men in independent frenzied dances.

Growling, Cloud threw his weight forward into a stab, but the monster twitched its head to the side, and the tip of Cloud's sword slashed into its eye, ripping it open and dripping sludge onto his blade, before glancing of the side of its face and sending Cloud stumbling.

Cloud scrabbled at the thing's shell with his free hand, catching the edge with his fingertips and launching himself onto the turtle's back.

He heard himself shouting something unintelligible as he swung his sword down with both hands.

He was still breathing harshly when Angeal tapped his knee to get his attention. Cloud glanced down at the headless beach turtle he was sitting on, and he grimaced at the monster gore covering his sword and arms.

* * *

He'd scrubbed his skin raw, but the smell of turtle spinal fluid was extra pungent, as bodily fluids went, and the other Seconds were giving him a damn wide berth.

Angeal leaned back in his seat, stretching his legs out in front of him, and nudged aside a haphazardly stacked pile of sacks. The First made an odd face, like he was smothering a grin, when Cloud looked at him.

"You're not going to hurl now, too, are you?"

* * *

TBC

Apologies for all the talky-talky. There'll be plenty more action next time.


	2. Stickerbrush Symphony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and settings are property of Square Enix. No profit is being made from the writing of this fanfiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
> 
> It's been fifteen years since this game, and I still can't stop thinking about it. It's probably the crazy. It resonates with my crazy.
> 
> Yes, the title is a song rec.

Part 2 - **Stickerbrush symphony**

**  
**

Cloud jumped off the back of the truck, and mud squelched under his boots. He laced his fingers together and stretched, his shoulders creaking after the period of inactivity.

It had rained the entire trip, the kind of endless drizzle that kept the Soldiers permanently damp and leeched all warmth from their skin. At night it grew just a bit heavier after a couple of cracks of thunder, and the men clustered over a pack of dog-eared cards in the back of the truck while the ground slowly turned to slurry outside.

The second night, Angeal had gotten out his grease and his cloths. He'd been quiet in his focus, leaning over the Buster sword in his lap, and the Soldiers had found pressing engagements in the other trucks until it was just Cloud left. He'd watched Angeal run his fingers down the detailing near the hilt, staring at something Cloud could not see.

Cloud had lain back on the bench and closed his eyes, listening to the uneven sound of rain dropping from the spoke-leafed tree above them and hitting the tarp.

He looked out over the bivouac. Rows and rows of tents lined up at the base of the steep cliff, and here and there, churned earth marked the spots in which recently uprooted trees had once stood. The oilcloth of the tents gleamed orange under the amber light of the setting sun. Laundry lines strung out between the side posts, and Cloud could see a short kid in a specialist's uniform trying and failing to smooth out the wrinkles in a row of hanging wool blankets he hadn't wrung dry enough.

"Which one do you think is Sephiroth's tent?"

Cloud snorted and tossed his duffel into Travers's face. "Don't be retarded."

Travers slung the bag back into Cloud's stomach by one of the straps. "Legitimate concern, here, asswipe."

"In what way? You going to sneak in at night and offer your services?"

"No, but I might offer yours."

"Name and ID, Soldier," someone snapped from behind him.

Cloud turned to see a man not so much thin as elongated, the stripes on his uniform naming him lieutenant-colonel, and the sour expression on his face naming him logistics officer. The officer looked him over before giving a small, bloodless smile, and Cloud's jaw tightened involuntarily.

* * *

Cloud kicked a rock as hard as he could, and it spun through the air and chipped off a slab of bark when it bounced off a tree.

A couple of wide-eyed regulars had done the actual digging, but they couldn't budge the pegs holding the constructs to the ground, so Cloud had had to wrench up the stakes before levering the outhouses onto a rough trolley and hauling the things over to the new location. For what were basically saplings lashed together into hollow shit boxes, they were heavy. By the time he was finished setting up the outhouses and pounding the support pegs back into the ground, the light had faded, and there'd been a line.

Half a dozen Thirds were gathered over a covered stove halfway across the camp, and Cloud could hear the howling from where he stood. He made his way over to a different firepit, and Hoffe looked up at him from where he sat alone.

Hoffe's lips thinned like he was holding back a grin, and he gestured to his own cheek. "You've got a little something..."

Cloud reached up automatically to wipe his face, but he paused just in time, his hand stalled midway to his cheek. " _Fuck_ ," he moaned. He dropped to the ground and fidgeted. "Got a rag you never want to see again?"

Hoffe tossed a bunched up scrap over. It had grease stains all over it, but at that point, Cloud would have happily slathered engine grease over his blankets and rolled in it.

He watched Hoffe for a moment. A patch of his mousy brown hair was thinning a bit at his crown, but Hoffe had long since proven immune to razzing about his appearance, and when Cloud had realized exactly why, he'd shut his trap and acted remorseful until Hoffe had levelled him with an exasperated punch and told him that they were even. The Third was hunched over his hands, the little knife he pinched between a couple of knuckles dwarfed by his broad fingers. It flashed erratically as it caught the light of the fire.

"What are you carving?" Cloud said.

It was always an experience, seeing Hoffe blush. It started somewhere under his collar and swept up his neck, bright and even as candy coating. He smiled, opening his palm, and showed Cloud an intricate little river trout, carved out of some sort of chalky coloured wood. He'd been etching the scales.

"For my daughter." He laughed a bit, rubbing his right hand against his pant leg. "My wife thinks I should have gone for a craftsman type job, but everything's kind of more expensive in Midgar, you know?"

Cloud couldn't explain the way his throat tightened. He watched Hoffe scrape at the wood again, pausing to blow some dust from the lines. It drifted into the fire, which popped sharply and spat sparks.

"It's nice," Cloud said.

* * *

"Strife. Come here."

Cloud trotted over to where Angeal waited with five other Soldiers.

He'd been told to pack for an assignment the previous night, and so his blanket roll, tucked under the sheath of his sword, thumped against his ass as he jogged. Materia glinted in the slots on his sword's haft, a faint, alive glow he could see from the corner of his eye.

"Sir."

Angeal nodded at him briefly. "As I was saying, what I want from you is speed," he said, addressing the group. "Don't engage enemies if possible, and don't take unnecessary risks. Particulars should have been sent to your PHS units last night."

Angeal did that expectant eyebrow raise thing that Cloud had been trying to master for months without looking like an idiot, and Cloud snapped to attention.

"Divisions one through eight are to relocate approximately fifteen miles closer to the Wutai capital," he said. "We're to seek out a pass through the mountains and report back with route details. Soldier speed."

"Good." Angeal glanced over the group for a moment, and then tilted his head to Cloud. "Strife, you've got command."

Something must have shown on his face, because Angeal's mouth twitched.

"Consider it an... informal evaluation," he said quietly, crossing his arms over his chest. "While I consider whether or not to submit that recommendation for promotion." Angeal raised his voice. "Departure in five minutes." He looked at Cloud again, just before he walked away. "No pressure."

A fire team rushed by after Angeal had gone, and Cloud caught their curious looks. He snapped his mouth shut with a click.

He turned to face the Soldiers.

There were a couple of Seconds and three Thirds. Hoffe gave him a quick flit of a smile when their eyes met through the tinted shell of his helmet. One of the Seconds narrowed his eyes.

Cloud knew the guy. His name was Robertsson, and he'd grown up in the Midgar slums. He carried a switchblade in his boot and had a reputation for knowing his way pretty damn well around materia. It was almost as widespread as his reputation for being generally nasty to anyone he decided was weak. Cloud knew he considered himself tough shit, but since the jagged scar down the side of his face that tugged his right eye into a permanent droop was from the time his father had gotten drunk and smashed a bottle over his temple while he was a kid, Cloud figured the guy had kind of earned it.

Robertsson had gotten himself in over his head once, when he'd taken a solo mission cleaning up a large group of slumtrash hopped up on some illegal mixture that turned out to be laced with crude mako, and Cloud had been close enough to interfere while they were trying to play Scalp the Soldier.

Robertsson hadn't said anything once they'd gotten back topside, but he'd given up the VR training room to Cloud a couple of times since.

He didn't recognize the other three. The Thirds were watching him intently, but the last Second had an unreadable expression on his face.

Robertsson nodded to him, the tiniest jerk of his head.

No fucking pressure.

* * *

They'd reached the base of the mountain range separating South Wutai from the Central regions three hours after departure.

Stepping over an upraised root, Cloud glanced at the mountains. He wouldn't have called it a range. More like a series of jagged spires and cliff faces from which more rock jutted into more mountain, as if the entire structure was an enormous sedentary life form that reproduced via budding. The few gaps he'd found so far had been of the bottomless chasm variety.

One of the Thirds—Geoffreys, he'd called himself—slapped at his arm, leaving a rusty smear of blood where the belly of the insect that had been feeding through his skin burst. He'd quietly but vehemently expressed his dislike for bugs once they'd hit the thickest parts of the forest, though he'd seemed sheepish when Cloud had looked back at him.

They were eating up ground quickly. Cloud had Robertsson cover the rear while he'd taken point. The other Second had introduced himself as Janes, and Cloud had put him on flank support. There'd been a couple of false alarms when something had moved too suddenly in the trees, and Cloud was debating whether or not he should pull Geoffreys off to the side and tell him to relax. The Third was probably only a year or two older than Cloud, and he was pretty sure the guy had come over on the same boat a week ago.

There was another gap in the trees in front of him. Cloud stopped, raising a spread hand.

He heard it again, a sound like the tapping of a fingernail against a bar, clicking faintly.

Janes drew up beside him. "Wutai?"

Cloud's hand rested on the bulb at the base of his broadsword's hilt. He scanned the muted green. "Not human," he said. "Likely hostile. It's waiting for us."

Hoffe stood on Cloud's other side, the muzzle of his rifle pointing at the brush and the ridges of the silencer gleaming under the hazy glow of linked materia. "Should I check it out?"

"No," Cloud said. "Outside of our mission parameters. Let's try to go—"

"Shit!"

Janes's palm thumped into Cloud's chest, shoving him back while he jumped away to the side.

Yellow gunk sprayed against the trees and settled on the ground, too clammy to be powder and too chunky to be slime. The plants turned a mottled brown-green, the colour spreading from the point of contact like a bruise, and Cloud thought he could hear an indistinct sizzling.

"Incoming!"

More of the muck splattered to the ground behind them, where Robertsson stood in front of the Thirds, forcing them along as he backed away. "Fuckers are trying to herd us," he spat. He flipped his long hand daggers into a defensive stance, and hissing flames coated the blades.

The clicking had swelled into a riot of chattering.

Cloud saw the monsters now, flat segmented carapaces weaving sinuously as their long, thin legs carried them forward. It was their mandibles that were snapping together to make the aggressive clicking noise as they advanced over the poison-stained ground.

Hoffe tried to stand his ground for a moment, before Cloud edged him back away from the bug monsters to collect in a rough shield formation with the other Soldiers. His eyes flickered to his sides. They were thoroughly surrounded.

"What the fuck are the crotch crickets doing?" asked one of the Thirds.

"They're probably flesh-eaters," Cloud said, watching the monster in front of him twist its head this way and that to regard him with glittering compound eyes. His eyes swept the circle of wolf-sized bugs again. "Okay, our priority is to get out of this stand-off." With a soft snick, he loosened his sword from its sheath and slid it slowly upwards. "Janes and I will take out the two at north and northeast, and we will take the opening to cross the treeline and regroup against the mountain base. Robertsson, cover us with Fire and follow."

"Un," Robertsson grunted.

Cloud listened as the other Soldiers muttered assent. He frowned. Four responses.

"Geoffreys?"

Still nothing.

Cloud shot a look over his shoulder.

Geoffreys's knuckles were white over the glossy black of his machine gun barrel. His eyes were fixed on the monster at his feet. It reared up off its front set of legs, and its antenna flicked back and forth, as if tasting the air.

Cloud could hear his short, cracked breathing, whistling against the edge of his helmet.

"Geoffreys!"

The bug snapped its mandibles again.

Geoffreys took in a sharp breath, his shoulder twitched, and he _shrieked_ , right before he opened fire at the monster.

Bullets shredded the delicate mouth parts and front legs of the monster, but they only cracked its carapace before bouncing off and raising dust from the ground.

Cloud couldn't make out the jumble of shouts over the sound of Geoffreys's gun. There was a brief flash of light on metal, and Cloud felt the pressure of the passage of a bullet by his ear as Janes blocked a stray ricochet.

The monster made a keening noise, jaundiced ooze dripping from its broken mouth. Cloud lunged out, dug both hands into Geoffreys's collar, and dragged the Soldier off his feet, backward out of range of a spray of poison. The bug wasn't able to propel the blast very far from its shattered mouth. Rattling their chitin shells, the other monsters surged toward the Soldiers.

"God fucking dammit, Geoffreys!"

The Third continued shooting, peppering the branches above them and dropping chips of wood and fragments of leaf onto them. Cloud seized the housing of the gun, squawked at the sear of heat into his hand, and he tightened his fingers against the strain of springs under the metal. Using his other arm, he slammed his elbow into the weak spot at Geoffreys's wrist, and the gun twisted in his hand before clattering to the ground.

There was the roar of fire, and a series of popping noises as pieces of the bugs, caught in the flames, couldn't contain the pressure of vaporizing insect soup under the shells.

Something shot out at him, and Cloud threw himself into a duck, rolled, and came to a stop on his back under a monster's belly. He swung, a quick shear of his sword, and his boot caught on one of the bug's legs as he scrambled out and away. The clip knocked the monster off balance, and it collapsed into a pile of convulsing legs, its two halves sliding slowly apart as the fluid tension keeping them together peeled away.

Cloud ignored the bisected monster. Another scythe-like leg had swung at his neck as soon as he'd struggled to his feet, and he let himself collapse to the side so that the blow passed over his head, snagging on his hair and ripping out what felt like a couple of clumps.

He adjusted his grip on his sword, and he moved.

Aside from the crunch of chitin giving away under the blade, there was very little resistance when he sliced into the monsters. It was different from the sensation of muscle and tissue adhering to the smooth walls of his weapon as it slid through, parting, but unwilling to yield. There wasn't the slurp and gush of blood, either, just the screech of shell rasping against metal that made the nerves in his spine clang.

He knew he was leaving a mess, bits of bug scattering over the ground and sticking to his skin and clothes, but the monsters operated under a style of relentless, simultaneous assault, and Cloud shut out his mind, letting himself hear the sing of his body. Muscles, cartilage, sensations in tandem, until the rush of air under his sword was as much a part of him as the breath in his lungs.

There wasn't much room to work, surrounded by trees and brawling Soldiers, and the exoskeleton pieces littering the earth were beginning to restrict their movements.

There was only one monster left, a big mother of a beast that looked like it could push over a tree with its head. It hung back, chittering and twisting its body as it looked at them.

Its head turned suddenly, and Cloud saw what caught its attention just as it started its lunge, mandibles and bladed legs spread wide. Geoffreys had levered himself to his feet, and his hands were fumbling for something at his belt as the bug dove toward his blind spot.

Hoffe bellowed something, lifting a bracer on which materia flashed bright.

Cloud had already shifted, his sword angled to bite into the monster's mouth, and its jaws pistoned, chewing ineffectually at the blade jammed into its face. The force of the monster's lunge forced Cloud's braced feet into a skid, and the sharp tip of one of its legs sank into his shoulder.

He heard the clink of magic collect in the air, and he saw the plume of his breath as specks of moisture crystallized in front of his mouth.

Three ice spells sprouted jagged icicles at the same time, and another series pounded into the monster right after, encasing every part of its body in semi-opaque fragments that glittered like hard crystal.

It cracked, one long line down the length of the block, and then the monster shattered into pieces and hit the ground with thuds and the brittle chime of ice blocks smashing into each other.

Cloud had overbalanced at the loss of pressure, and he landed with an ass-jarring thump. He looked up. Geoffreys's hand was shaking like a half-torn leaf from the drain of energy into the spells, and the materia on his wrist still glowed bright and filled the air with the smell of ozone as remaining spits of magic split the molecules they lanced.

There were more tinkles as the frozen monster continued decomposing.

Hoffe rested his hands on his knees, and he sucked in a long, loud breath. "Think there are more of them?" he said.

"Do you really want to find out?" Janes said drily.

Cloud looked around. Robertsson had a sluggishly weeping gash on his arm, and the shredded patch of Hoffe's uniform showed slick red underneath. Cloud rotated his shoulder experimentally, and the raw edges of the hole in his skin ground together unpleasantly.

"We should get ourselves to safer ground," he said, wincing at the gunk on his sword and wiping it on the leg of his pants before sheathing it. "Let's get going."

He watched the Soldiers pick themselves up, and he cut back a sigh.

"Geoffreys, come with me."

* * *

Cloud slung the canteens over his shoulder. There'd been a huge river at the bottom of one of the mountains, cut into the rock deep enough that by the time he'd skidded down to water level, it'd been solid black all around him and he'd nearly pitched face first into the icy rush.

He sucked at the cuts on his fingers, and they stung like the papercut from hell. The climb up had been even more fun, especially when the water-logged sediment had crumbled under his hands and he'd dangled for a good minute from his sword where he'd reflexively jabbed it into the rock face.

Cloud hissed between his teeth and checked his shoulder again. Hoffe's neat little stitches were holding up well. There was barely a dribble of blood after his fall and subsequent wrenching stop.

Watery moonlight filtered through the tree cover, too weak to cast shadows in the gloom.

The dark forms of tree trunks melded into a shapeless mass in the distance, but then Cloud scowled, dropped the canteens, and propelled himself into a dash at what he saw.

"Oi!" he shouted.

Robertsson flicked an eye in his direction before turning his slitted stare back to the man he had pinned to rough bark. Cloud saw his lips move, forming words too soft for him to hear, and then, slowly, Robertsson's hands unwound themselves from Geoffreys's uniform collar. The Third staggered back against the tree as Cloud stepped between the Soldiers, and his breath whistled in his bruised throat.

"What the hell was that, Robertsson?"

He saw the Second's jaw shift like he was working a pip out of his teeth. "Just discussing Geoffreys's performance today," Robertsson said after a moment, staring somewhere beyond Cloud's left ear.

"Let me guess. A friendly pep talk?" Cloud said, leaning forward into Robertsson's face until the Soldier's eyes snapped to him.

"He needed it."

" _I_ decide what he needs, in case you've forgotten."

Robertsson's mouth twitched, and his nostrils flared. It was a while before he broke eye contact. "I haven't forgotten," he said, the words sharp and short.

"Glad to hear it," Cloud said. He stepped back, resisting the urge to dig his nails into his scalp and scream at Angeal. "You're on first watch, as I recall."

Robertsson nodded.

Cloud waited until his muffled footsteps faded in the dark.

Geoffreys ducked his head when Cloud looked at him as he went back for the canteens.

"You alright?"

"Yes. I—sorry, sir."

Cloud snorted, bending over to snatch up the straps. "That's fucking weird, man; I'm not a sir. I told you. Call me Cloud."

"Oh. Right," Geoffreys mumbled.

"Look, don't worry. I'm not going to bitch you out again." He slotted his water canteen into his belt and dumped the rest into Geoffreys's hands. "You can carry those, though. Come on. Let's get back to camp." Cloud waited until Geoffreys had wound the straps around his arm and jogged to catch up. "What were you doing out here, anyway? Robertsson call you out?"

"No, not really. It's not like he didn't have a point. I fucked up."

"Well, sure, but quit thinking about it. Robertsson's got his daggers stuck so far up his ass that they're probably lodged in his throat."

Geoffreys's mouth flattened. "If I was stronger—"

"You've gotta rely on the rest of us more," Cloud interrupted. "We're a team. We've got your back, and you get ours. There's no point just wanting to be strong for yourself." He watched the Third for a moment, and he shrugged. "We're friends, right?"

Geoffreys stopped and looked at him. "Friends?"

Cloud blinked.

Green. An acrid burn in his throat and lungs. All green.

A wide grin, distorted by glass and a flurry of bubbles. His vision twisted, jumping like a yoyo on crack. He saw his hand—green—reach out and press, wide as he could spread his fingers, against curved glass.

" _Friends?"_

Green. Green _greengreengreen_.

"Cloud?"

Cloud flinched.

"Are you okay?"

"Fine," he snapped, faster than he intended. "Let's go."

"Wait, I was looking for you before Robertsson jumped me. A report. While I was collecting supplies for the camp, I found a pass through the mountains that looked promising. It's about twenty minutes west along the range."

A grin spread slowly over Cloud's face. "Yeah? Sounds pretty awesome. Right, I'll go check it out. You head back to the others." Cloud slapped a hand against Geoffreys's back, and there was the dull clunk of a gun harness. "All goes well, we could be out of this monster shit-infested forest sooner than later." He checked his position on his PHS before setting out. "Oh yeah," he called over his shoulder, "tell the rest of the men that I've got dibs on your ass, and if they try anything, I know the company's sexual harassment policies by heart."

Geoffreys's sputtering behind him, Cloud pushed past a cluster of twisted branches and closed his eyes to the green.

The growth didn't thin out as he moved, so Cloud didn't see anything until he squeezed out of the last line of trees and the ground dropped in a shallow curve right before his feet.

He looked over the wide valley, filled with stiff grasses that waved with the crinkly rasp of leaves in the wind, overpowering the mating call chirps of invisible things behind him. He waded into the waist high fronds, and the serrated edges of the grass snagged gently at his uniform.

The air sucked at his cheeks, a bit cold and a bit damp, but he raised his face into it anyway.

He grinned, and he started the trek back.

* * *

The grey light of pre-dawn smudged out hard edges.

Cloud stamped his way through another thick clump of grasses, raising his feet high enough to crush the thick stems under his boots.

Hoffe glanced at him from where he worked up ahead, and he snorted before stepping into Cloud's path, swinging his machete in a quick arc, and hacking a wide swath to make it easier for Cloud to walk.

"If you were just going to bitch about your sword getting scratched, you should have stayed back sippin' tea with the rest of the ladies."

"Fuck off, Robertsson."

The man gave him a lopsided grin that made the edges of his scar whiten, and he switched his own machete from hand to hand as he worked, cutting an even path.

Robertsson hadn't said anything about the previous altercation when he'd gotten back from his patrol. He'd nodded at Cloud and flung himself down onto his bedroll, and he'd left Geoffreys alone. He'd been positively chatty when Cloud had woken the Soldiers before dawn and told them they would probably head back today after making sure the pass didn't dead end somewhere in the mountains.

There was probably something significant about this in a way that made more sense to Robertsson than it did to Cloud, but he wasn't about to bring it up.

"Pass looks good," Robertsson said, looking up at the lightening sky.

"Yeah, Geoffreys did good."

"He'd better," Robertsson said, loud enough for Geoffreys to hear. "No bugs here."

There were a couple of snickers behind them.

Cloud frowned. "Right. No bugs." He looked around at the silent grasses, and then up at the solid rock faces of the cliffs hemming them in. There was a heavier shadow about halfway up, but Cloud didn't see anything moving in the recess.

Robertsson had been peering around with narrowed eyes, too. The rest of the Soldiers had stopped, and they edged closer, hands on weapons.

"No bugs, no birds," Cloud said.

"Ambush?" Hoffe said.

"There's nothing alive around here. You feel it?" Robertsson said.

The sun rose. It was one of those bright pink dawns, and light streaked over the cliff faces like watered down blood, throwing long, black fingers of shadows across the rock. There was a gust of wind, and the grass rustled.

"Let's move on," Cloud said, after a while. "I'm pretty sure I see the other end of the pass."

His eyes flickered back and forth over the cliffs as they began to walk. Nothing moved.

There was a hiss behind him. "Ow! Shit!"

Cloud swung around. It was one of the Thirds. Jordon, longsword, his mind supplied. Not very good at magic. There was a ragged slash on his elbow, and blood dribbled slowly onto the ground.

"What was that?" Hoffe said.

"I didn't see anything move," Jordon said. He shook his arm, and he switched to a two-handed grip on his weapon.

Cloud unsheathed his sword, wrenching it from his back. He brought it up in time to deflect a whip of several long blades of grass, their razor edges whirling like a saw.

The rustling really was a lot louder than the wind warranted.

Around them, clumps of weed were shifting, dragging their roots from the ground with jerky movements that reminded Cloud of the picture flipbooks Kunsel liked to make from their training manuals, where thumbing through the pages fast enough made some kind of stupid drawing on the edges flicker and animate.

With clacks of heavy stalks slapping against each other, the things danced. The earth churned, sending clods of dirt flying.

One of the grass monsters dived at Cloud, and he swung at it. Sliced straight down its centre, the severed stalks oozed sap and fell limp. He caught another one on the upswing, and it shed long leaves, staggered on its twisted roots, and toppled over.

He spun, sending a couple more of the monsters tumbling with shrill whistling noises, and he raised his free hand. Heat pooled in his palm, and spiralling fireballs spread out to slam into the grassy crowns. The flames caught quickly, incinerating a few more of the monsters before what looked like a mob of weeds converged on the stricken things, blades whirring, shredding them as they smothered the fire.

Cloud slashed apart a tangle of rushing grass monsters, and he threw himself forward into a tight roll when he felt something snag at the back of his uniform. There was a ripping noise, and the tear over his spine felt unpleasantly breezy, but the weed hadn't managed to catch his skin.

"What is _wrong_ with this country, where bugs and fucking _grass_ try to eat us?" Janes's voice yelled from somewhere out of his line of sight.

"Quit moaning and fight!" Robertsson snapped.

The weeds were everywhere. Cloud couldn't see the ground for dense, rattling saw blades, stretching out through the pass. They hopped on their roots, darting forward and back, their stalk crowns spinning in blurs. He jumped over a line of weeds, shearing down through them before twisting to avoid a flying clump of grass aimed at his face. There was a brief gap in the mass of green, and when Cloud blinked, it was filled with more blades.

A bit further off, an explosion sent flames and soot roaring up into the sky, and dirt slid from the cliffs around them. The blackened patch of ground vanished under another rush of weed monsters.

"They're definitely weak to fire." Robertsson's back slapped against Cloud's, and he sliced through a whistling monster with his hand daggers, sending its shredded leaves tumbling. "But the ones that don't get hit directly know how to prevent it from spreading."

Cloud grunted, hacking into a rush of weeds. "They die if their roots or main stalk is taken out," he shouted back.

The other Second made a short noise in the back of his throat, and he cast another blast of fire. The sensation of magic energy rising from the man's skin made the hairs on the back of Cloud's neck crackle.

"There's just too many of them," Hoffe said, his words forced out from between tightly clenched teeth.

Cloud glanced over his shoulder quickly as he slashed up and across another spinning charge. Hoffe was breathing hard, augmenting his gun with fire materia so that the barrel glowed red. There were livid lacerations over his ankles and legs.

Cloud swung around in time to raise his sword up, and the monster hurtling toward him spit itself into his blade before sliding off in two chunks. The weed monsters seemed pretty mindless, rushing headlong with razor stalks spinning, but their numbers were not thinning under the Soldiers' attacks. "We have to retreat!"

" _How?_ " Robertsson said.

"I—"

There was a raw scream, and a burst of gunfire.

"Hoffe!"

Cloud swatted a flying weed monster and sent it smashing into a cliff as he darted toward the Third, ripping through the monsters that tried to block his way. Bits of grass clung to his sword, where monster sap had made the blade sticky.

Hoffe had gone down, thudding onto his back, and weed monsters swarmed him, battering at his helmet and sawing at his arms where he'd raised them to protect his neck.

Cloud mowed the things down, bits and slices of weed slapping down onto Hoffe's arms and chest. More of them started dashing forward in their odd skipping step, but a barrage of fireballs slapped into the monsters and drove them back long enough for Cloud to haul Hoffe up—he tried to avoid the mangled flesh at Hoffe's forearm, but his grip slipped on the blood and the Third bit back another scream—and yank the man over his shoulder.

He looked around. Geoffreys and Janes had taken position in front of him to hold off a wave of weed monsters, some of them with Hoffe's blood smeared over their blades, and Robertsson was dragging Jordon back behind him while he cast successive blasts of fire.

"Up there!" Cloud pointed.

"What?" Janes said, wiping monster sap from his jaw.

"I saw a cave, earlier!" He didn't wait for a response, took an awkward hopping run at it, and he leaped.

Cloud realized that he'd overshot in midair. Shouting, he twisted hard, bringing Hoffe's limp weight around so that the Third wouldn't take the brunt of the impact, just before they slammed into the rock wall in the dip in the cliff. His shoulder hit the stone, and it screamed at him. His teeth ground together, and his grip slipped as he fumbled for better purchase so that he wouldn't drop Hoffe. Fuck, it was the shoulder with the hole in it. Fuckity _fuck_.

There were more thumps behind him, and he saw Geoffreys windmill for a moment before tipping forward and clinging to the rock face.

The recess had looked a lot bigger in the hazy light before dawn. There was barely enough room for him to lay Hoffe down on the cool stone. Robertsson was perched on the lip of the cave, scowling down outside, and Cloud leaned over to look.

Weed monsters clustered on the ground, so thick that their crowns looked like a ragged mat. Once or twice, a couple of the things launched themselves up at the cave, but smashed into the cliff face far short of the weather-scraped lip.

The broken stems of the monsters that had failed the leap didn't deter more of the things from trying, and Cloud remembered the huge black flies that kept getting into his mother's house during summer, and the thumps of their bodies slapping into the window, over and over again until they had broken their wings and lay twitching on the sill.

Hoffe moaned quietly behind him.

Cloud watched as Geoffreys cut away the blood-soaked fabric of Hoffe's uniform around his legs. The monsters had ripped into the tops of Hoffe's boots, and the skin looked flayed away, a couple of twisting strips of flesh hanging over the mangled leather. Glistening, half red and half white, crushed bone was visible in patches. Hoffe's right forearm looked worse.

Cloud tapped Geoffreys's shoulder as Janes stuffed the leg wounds tight with cloth and the Third prepared to wrap a tourniquet around Hoffe's shin. Wordlessly, he took the second roll of bandages that Geoffreys offered, and he turned to Hoffe's arm.

He'd almost finished tying off the bandage when Jordon slumped to the floor, back of his head pressed hard against the cave wall behind him. "Fuck, Strife, you'd think you'd check to see if the valley was stuffed through the shitspitter with Razorweeds before trying to pass through it," he rasped, his voice flat and level.

Robertsson turned his head just a bit, and his scarred eye fixed on Cloud. "I've never seen so many of them in one area," he said, "but Strife probably didn't know they existed, did he? This is his first time in Wutai."

Cloud's jaw clenched. The throbbing in his head was starting to localize at his temples, but the Soldiers were watching him, and he kept his hands down at his sides. His eyes narrowed, and he leaned forward, grabbing Jordon's arm. He ignored Jordon's shout, and he turned the man's arm until he could see the elbow. He hissed under his breath. A particularly virulent purple colour was crawling up the Third's arm from the slash he'd received, and Jordon's face contorted. The skin was hot to the touch.

Cloud dug through the day pack strapped to his hip, prying apart the flaps over the padded compartments, and he pulled out a small glittering phial.

"Antidote?"

"Splash some on your arm and drink the rest," Cloud said.

"What about Hoffe?"

Janes made a quiet noise, and Cloud saw the Second hand over another dose of the antidote to Geoffreys. He nodded his head briefly. His shoulder was sending stabs of pain straight to his spine, and his headache was bloating heavy and stiff. He breathed deeply, closing his eyes. "What information do we have on these Razorweeds?"

There was a pause, and then Jordon said, "Not a lot, actually. We hadn't encountered them often. Their data didn't say they were poisonous."

"And they only become active during daylight," Cloud said.

"Are you suggesting we sit in this rock crack until night?" Jordon said loudly.

"No, Hoffe won't make it that long." There was a particularly sharp sting over his eye, and Cloud winced.

"Well, what's your plan, then?"

Cloud didn't say anything. Hoffe's skin was waxy under his dark tan, and sweat beaded under his nose. Cloud had seen Soldiers go into shock before. He looked at Hoffe's slack face, and his nails dug into his palms.

"Strife," Robertsson said quietly, and Cloud heard the edge to his voice.

"Just let me think!" he snapped.

He swallowed. The full length of his arm blazed. His breath felt like it ripped at his throat, raw and swollen from drowning over and over again. The thumping of his head filled his ears. It pulsed, thudding, receding, returning, until it sounded like the roar of an airship engine with the turbines right by his head and about to churn his brains into sausage mush.

"Strife!"

"Piss off!"

The noise was gone so suddenly, the quiet sounded deafening in his ears.

There was a laugh, and a warmth behind his back.

" _These city mudsuckers wouldn't know what to do if a good plan jumped up and bit them in the ass._ "

Cloud closed his eyes. The white haze was everywhere, a bit misty near the ground, like heavy, low-lying fog. It was bright enough that he could still see a bit of the light through his eyelids, just a hint of red, a network of capillaries lying over his eyes.

" _Want me to take care of it?_ "

Cloud's eyes snapped open, and he looked at Robertsson. "We're getting out of here."

"Are you—"

"We'll fight. There is no acceptable alternative."

Robertsson stood up, and the light from the cave mouth behind him illuminated only half of his face.

"You're Soldiers, aren't you?" Cloud unslotted his Firaga with a click, and he handed it to Janes. "Think you can't fry a few weeds?" He nodded to Geoffreys. "Stay here. I need you to take care of the wounded."

The Third gave him a sloppy salute.

"Robertsson and Janes, come with me." Cloud stood at the lip of the cave, and he stared down at the rippling mess below. "Cover me with Fire," he said. "Spread it wide as you can." He raised a hand, and his knuckles popped when he clenched it into a tight fist. "We're going to waste these compost pile rejects."

"You're insane," Janes said, after a moment. "You're fucking nuts."

Cloud tugged his sword from its sheath, and it sang through the air, flashing bright in the morning sunlight as he spun it in his hand, its pivot point rubbing into his palm where the hilt was worn smooth. He turned his head back and met Janes's eyes. He grinned wide, baring his teeth, and he jumped into open air.

His sword slashed down first, and the impact sent clumps of dirt and rock flying like shrapnel. Weed monsters tumbled into the air, falling back among the spinning blades of the Razorweeds jostling for position behind them and knocking them over as they were ripped to pieces.

Fwumps of fireballs splashed into the mass of monsters, dust fountaining up in jets.

Cloud adjusted his grip on his sword, and he attacked again.

Heat ran through him, riding his blood. Sweat stung as it trickled into his eyes, and he tasted its salt at the corner of his mouth.

He didn't notice when the magical bombardment stopped until Janes's sword cut through a monster trying to grind its way into his side, and the Soldier pitched against his shoulder before he caught his balance.

Robertsson dropped to the ground on the other side of him, and he shook his head, his breath ragged, when Cloud glanced at him. "I'm out. Can't cast anymore."

"Get back up there," Cloud said, cleaving down. His sword sent another shockwave into the ground, and dirt shot up, slopping like a splash of water.

"You need our help," Janes snarled. "You're going to _die_ down here."

Robertsson laughed as he swiped his daggers widthwise across a couple of monsters. It sounded like a hoarse bark. "We're _all_ going to die down here."

Cloud's sword weaved, and his knuckles tightened as he widened his stance. A sticky heat was leaking from the ripped stitches in his shoulder, and he shifted his balance to redistribute the pressure. Streaks of red decorated his arms like they were some kind of macabre candycane. The poison hadn't discoloured his skin, not yet, but he could feel the patches of numbness as it spread.

He nearly took Janes down with him when he tipped forward.

"We're not," he hissed. "We're not going to die here." He hacked a weed into a couple of pieces and sent them shooting through the air. He raised his sword over his head. "Get back."

"You can't even stand on your own, Strife!"

"Get back!"

Slowly, his fingers curled, and the sword began to whirl over his head.

"What the fuck—"

"Move!"

It picked up speed, humming like built up static in the atmosphere. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw light coat the blade, orange like it had sucked up the sun and was spewing it all back out again.

Chattering, the monsters surged forward toward him.

"Oi!" Janes shouted.

Cloud saw the arm reach out for him, and the fingers scraped over his skin just as he launched himself into the air and slung his sword forward.

The sky split open, and great chunks of rock pounded into the ground, coating it with ashy fire near the whole length of the valley. The thumps rattled the cliffs and battered his eardrums, and heat blazed, baking him from below.

The fire belched black, rushing back and forth as it greedily consumed every speck of available fuel, and just as suddenly, it blinked out.

The ground was still almost uncomfortably warm when Cloud's boots thudded down. His knees rebelled, and he swung his sword up and hastily stabbed the point into the ground. Clinging to the hilt, he stared. Oily soot covered the ground, lifting and flattening again in flakes as heat wafted them upward. The acrid smell of smoke made his eyes water, and he dropped his head onto his arms.

" _Good one, Spike._ "

He jerked, pulling his eyes up. He looked around, a strange hollow feeling settling into his throat. Nothing to see.

Robertsson had lurched down from where he'd been clinging to the cliff face, and he was staring around the scorched terrain with an odd expression on his face.

"Fuck, Strife. Trust you to pull this kind of shit straight out of your ass."

* * *

When he hears the voices, they're garbled, like they're filtering through a layer of water.

He hears them, off and on, when he's awake.

He's pretty sure he's awake. It's hard to tell, because he doesn't remember being asleep. He must, though, because there are gaps in his awareness, just solid chunks chopped out with no in-between state to indicate that here is where the boundary between awake and not awake is.

Maybe he just doesn't remember.

His memory is divided into shelves, he thinks. Something is taking out those shelves—inspecting them?—and then slotting them back into place if they pass the test. He doesn't know what happens to the ones that don't pass because he can't find them. Maybe they're gone, snipped out by unseen scissors. Maybe they're hidden, shuffled somewhere out of reach.

He's guessing, really. It's not as if he can prove they were there in the first place.

He must be frowning, because there's a hand on his forehead. It's warm, a bit clammy.

"—are you going to _stop_ —"

Snip.

"—going to be—"

Snip.

"—he's _dying_ , Tifa!"

Snip snip.

* * *

Cloud sat down on the little stool beside the low infirmary cot. The operation had finished up hours ago, but he could still smell the blood and the anesthetics in the air.

He figured he should maybe take Hoffe's hand. They did that in movies a lot, and it always looked like a comforting sort of thing.

Cloud scowled, and he clenched his fist tight. He couldn't take Hoffe's hand.

He'd been stupid and sat on the side where the stump was.

Hoffe shifted a bit, and Cloud sat up straight.

Hoffe's eyes opened a crack, and when he saw Cloud, his lips turned up, just at the sides.

"Cloud."

"Hey."

"They're sending me home," he said.

Cloud smiled back, his cheeks stiff.

* * *

TBC

Ugh, I've remembered why fighting monster mobs is so tedious and repetitive. I swear there will be less of this as the plot progresses.


	3. Those Wings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and settings are property of Square Enix. No profit is being sought from the writing of this fanfiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
> 
> I couldn't avoid canon progression for much longer without it getting ridiculous on me.
> 
> First, though, I apologize. I don't have a beta for video game stuff, so you may notice me polishing this up even after it should technically be done. Endless fighting is good and well in game, but not so exciting in text form. There will be room to breathe next time.

**Part 3.**  Those wings

 

 

In the right light, at exactly the right angle, materia became translucent.

Normally, it captured the light that struck it inside the sphere, bouncing the photons back and forth, up and down, within the curve of its shell until it looked opaque, lit by an inner glow.

Cloud flicked his wrist, tossing the command materia up again.

At the apex of its flight, it hung, just for a moment, at the precise location, and sunlight lanced it. Light shot through, shattered beams of yellow that sprayed outward, banding the ground beside Cloud's head with its patterns of interference. The pattern shifted as it began its drop, and a ray scathed over Cloud's eyes. He flinched, but he didn't blink, and suddenly the light was gone, just before the materia tumbled into Cloud's hand, solid colour in a solid ball.

He tipped his palm, letting it roll into his fingers, and he snapped it back up into the air.

Flash.

Click. Swish.

Flash.

Cloud blinked, and he lowered his empty hand. He propped himself up onto his elbows and tilted his head back to see a wall of black.

Angeal nested the materia between two fingers, and he raised up his arm. He squinted as he peered up at the bright orb against the bright sky.

"You can see through it if you hold it up right," Angeal said.

"Yeah."

"Simpler than throwing it."

Cloud shrugged. He pulled himself to his feet, dragging a hand through his hair to dislodge bits of grass that spun as they tumbled to the ground.

"Soldier Third Class Hoffe left this morning."

Cloud frowned. "Did he ask for me?" He tugged the strap that held his sword's harness to his back, and it tightened with an obliging creak.

"No."

"Right."

Angeal lowered the materia, and he looked at Cloud, rolling the little ball around his fingers. "Cloud, you're turning into a recluse."

"Hey, if I go down there, they'll make me shovel chocobo shit or something. I swear the higher ups in the Regs have it in for me." He turned fully to face Angeal, and he grinned. "What, do I look like a recluse to you?"

"You look like an immature child who's experiencing loss for the first time."

In the silence, Cloud looked away.

When Angeal sighed, Cloud dipped his head, and the side of his mouth tugged. "When did you turn into my shrink?" he said. "Sir," he added.

Angeal snorted. "When I got saddled with a troublesome pupil like you." The First snapped his knuckles against the side of Cloud's head and dropped the materia into Cloud's hand in the same movement. "Come on," he said while Cloud fumbled with the sphere, "I haven't been training you enough lately if you've gotten mouthy on me."

* * *

Angeal's sword clashed against his and scraped up a shower of sparks when Cloud turned his wrist to deflect the pressure. As the First's sword dragged down his blade, Cloud ducked down and used the friction to shove himself into a pivot. He dug his heel into the dirt as he twisted, disengaging to swing his sword up and aiming his slash at Angeal's flank, where the Buster sword didn't cover his back.

He barely saw the movement before Angeal blocked him, broadsword angled over his shoulder and forcing through the progression to shove Cloud's strike off and to the side.

Cloud brought his sword up quickly to catch Angeal's down blow, and he felt his boots lift just a bit off the ground at the power behind the strike. He leaped backward, bringing his weapon into a two-handed guard as he recovered his balance.

When Angeal lunged, his blade a diagonal fissure of light, Cloud launched himself up into the air, corkscrewing to face Angeal's back. The First swung around, bringing his sword up.

No foothold in midair. He couldn't dodge. Cloud braced his weapon on the back of his fist, and he juggled it rapidly to block the quick succession of strikes. He threw the last blow upwards, pushing Angeal back a step and giving himself enough propulsion to flip back and away.

Cloud pushed off his back leg as soon as he landed, darting forward and feinting left. He dropped the tip of his sword when Angeal raised his weapon to block, weaved under, and smacked it against the flat of Angeal's blade. He switched hands, aiming for the brief hole in Angeal's guard, and he grinned.

Angeal's fist drove into his stomach a split second before the First bent his arm, brought up his forearm to catch him under the chin, and wacked Cloud flying across the training ground.

Cloud's breath rushed out of his lungs when he landed on his back, and he wheezed, ignoring the coolness of metal at his throat.

He scowled up at Angeal.

"Giving up?" Angeal said.

Cloud swiped out with his leg at the First's knee. It missed, but at the same time, he knocked Angeal's wrist upward with a fist and swung his weapon in a whistling arc, bashing aside Angeal's sword just enough for him to throw himself into a roll.

He came up into a crouch, and felt at his neck with his free hand. No bleeding. Good.

"Give up?" he rasped. He cleared his throat. "Funny."

Angeal laughed, adjusting the Buster sword on his back before raising his broadsword and stepping back into his stance.

Cloud caught a flash of movement in the corner of his vision.

Catlike green eyes, slits constricted against the bright artificial lighting, met his.

Sephiroth turned away, his long coat flapping out for a moment with his passage.

Angeal sighed, pushing his fingers through his hair, his blade dipping to rest against his boot. "It's alright," he said quietly, "he's been there for a while."

"What?"

"Don't worry about it." Angeal inspected the edge of the broadsword in his hands before slotting it back onto the weapons rack, under the tarp stretched out on heavy poles.

Cloud waited, watching Angeal stretch out his shoulders and roll his neck to the side. "Couldn't the General have wanted to talk to you?" he said.

Angeal paused in his cool down and looked at him.

"No," he said finally. "Probably not."

Cloud shook his head. "Did something happen?" he persisted.

"Cloud, focus."

"Does it have something to do with the mass desertion the Director mentioned before we were sent here?"

Angeal hopped the fence around the training area, and he waved a gloved hand over his shoulder. "Nothing that concerns you."

"Angeal!"

The First stopped, framed by the darkness outside the corralled field, where the lamplight didn't reach. "It's almost over, Cloud," he said softly. "Mission tomorrow night."

The forest engulfed him.

* * *

"Strife!"

Cloud missed his landing. He'd been doing his morning calisthenics, launching his torso up off the ground and clapping his hands under his chest before catching himself. He thumped to the ground, twisting sharply so that it was his shoulder and not his face that made contact with the dirt. Grit forced its way under his tongue.

Travers snickered. "Jumpy, aren't you?"

Cloud rolled onto his back and glared. "That was deliberate, wasn't it, asstard?"

Travers flapped a lazy hand as he turned and glanced over the bivouac. Cloud rocked himself onto his shoulder blades and used the momentum of the swing to hop to his feet. He scuffed his boots over the ground absently as he walked, and he hung his arms over the rough wood of the fence, standing beside Travers. Personnel had been rushing around since early that morning, some distributing supplies, others running messages or rounding up manpower, shouting themselves red in the face.

Cloud could pick out the insignia on the belts of Soldiers easily. He frowned. "I heard about the desertion."

"Yeah," Travers said. He picked at a nail, flicking bits of gunk out toward the commotion down below. He shrugged a shoulder. "I asked around. There are only ten Second Class operatives on this front. Both of the Firsts are here with us."

Cloud blinked slowly, tracing the path of an officer, jowly chin jiggling as he stomped, with his eyes. "Asked around?"

Travers turned, and he watched Cloud. "What would you do," he said abruptly, "if Angeal left?"

Cloud whipped his head around, and his neck howled at the abuse. "What the fuck are you trying to say?" he snapped.

"The Firsts are heroes because of this war. It's hard to be sure who Soldiers are loyal to, the company or the people in it, until they have to make a choice."

"Are you calling Angeal a traitor?"

Travers stared. Finally, he tsked and jabbed Cloud in the arm with an elbow as he turned back to face the camp. "Forget it. You and your one-track mind wouldn't get what us adults talk about."

"Angeal values honour above everything else!" Cloud said hotly.

Travers didn't turn again, but Cloud saw his mouth twist drily. "Why do you think we're fighting this war, Strife?" he said.

Cloud eyed the Second suspiciously. "Wutai destroyed the reactor that the company was building."

Travers gave a muffled snort, and it turned into a gasping hyena laugh. He bent over and clutched at his belly.

"What?" Cloud demanded.

"Nothing, Strife," Travers said between wheezes. He swiped his thumbs over the corners of his eyes, and he waved his hand. "Forget about it."

Cloud hissed out his breath from between his teeth, and he turned around to lean his back against the fence. He tilted his head up to look at the cloudless sky. His voice flat, he said, "I get why people don't agree with what Shinra's doing. There's a reactor in Nibelheim and a lot more dead fish in the river now. We used to export natural materia, but then almost all of the springs dried up, and now we mainly export people. Everyone works for Shinra, you know." He raised a hand, shielding his eyes from the sun as he squinted. "All the kids leave."

Travers hummed.

"But we're the ones who decided to be here," Cloud said to the sky.

"Heard you're flying solo, tonight," Travers said, after a few seconds.

Cloud shifted, his shoulder blades scratching at the wood. "You know about it?"

"No shit," Travers said, gesturing at the activity down around the tents. "It's the big one."

"You're on this one, too?"

"Yeah," Travers grinned at him. "The General is taking Evans and me and the rest of us, and we're gonna go around and hit their centre of power hard while you and Angeal blitz the fort. We'll finish Wutai tonight."

There was a bird wheeling slowly, black against the sky, high above. It soared, its wings stretched flat and still. "Watch yourself," Cloud said.

"Yeah."

* * *

Cloud hacked down across the collar of the last Wutai private, shearing the long firearm he held in guard into two clean halves. The man crumpled.

"Ha!" Cloud swung his sword, spattering the body with fat drops of blood as he flicked it clean before tossing it into a sharp spin and sheathing it.

Angeal grunted behind him. "Quit goofing off and get over here."

Cloud stepped over the bodies and hunkered down beside Angeal, where he was crouching behind a boulder.

"Be a little more discreet, would you?"

Cloud fiddled with the thick leather of his gloves, checked the growth of his new materia, and he grinned. "So what's our attack plan? Should we split up? I could probably take these guys with a hand tied behind my back."

Angeal made an odd noise, a bit like a choked laugh. "Glad to see you've recovered your enthusiasm. You're going to need it. You're going in on your own."

"Huh?"

"You're on combat support tonight. I'll head directly to the centre of the fort to set the bombs."

Cloud felt his mouth fall open as he stared at Angeal. Slowly, it turned into a smile, and he nodded tightly. "Right. I can handle it."

"You'd better be able to," Angeal said, peering off into the darkness. "I recommended you for First."

When Cloud's hands fell slack and he didn't respond, Angeal turned his head and scowled.

"What are you acting so surprised for?"

Cloud opened his mouth. He closed it again.

Angeal turned his head away so that Cloud couldn't see his face, but his cheek pulsed like it was held still with great effort. He reached out, pressed a palm against Cloud's head, and shoved him away. "Well, I put in the nomination to Lazard yesterday. Don't make me regret it."

Cloud ducked his head out from under Angeal's hand. He looked up at the First, and then he smiled. "Yes sir!"

Cloud leaned his forearms against the rock, tipping forward to look up and down the trail. There was a tingle in his arm, like something had reached into his skin and twanged the nerves underneath. He winced, and he glanced to his side.

He made a strangled croak.

Bright blue eyes met his, the gentle swirl of mako haze in the iris. The man smiled crookedly, and Cloud glanced down to see where the man's arm, resting against the same stone, vanished where it touched his skin. The shape wavered, like the reflection of the moon in a pool of water that Cloud had stuck his hand into.

"Zack?" he said, just a whisper of sound. His eyes felt scratchy, like ants were crawling over his eyeballs and plucking out his hairs.

"What's that?" Angeal's voice was loud in his ear.

Cloud jerked, and the image was gone. He blinked rapidly.

"Are you alright?" Angeal said as he rested a hand on the curve of Cloud's pauldron.

Cloud's back tensed at the solid touch, and he turned to look at Angeal. "Uh. Yeah. Sorry. Thought I saw something."

"Someone named Zack?"

Cloud frowned, something stinging at the back of his palate. "I don't know anyone called Zack."

Angeal eyed him for a moment, and Cloud raised his hands.

"It's nothing, really."

"Hmm," Angeal said, turning back to the path. "You're not moping anymore, at least."

"I wasn't moping," Cloud said, settling further back on his haunches. "Just... thinking."

"And what did you decide?"

Cloud looked up at the darkened trees. Their leaves were waxy, reflecting silver in the moonlight, and the slow flicker of fireflies lit their undersides. The beetles were invisible when not luminescent, and so their disjointed paths jumped from patch to patch as they glowed and vanished in turn.

"I'm going to protect them," he said. "Every one." A breeze flapped at the leaves over their heads, making them judder loudly, but Cloud didn't bother raising his voice.

"Oh?" Angeal said, his voice mild. "You have no subordinates on this mission."

"Then I'll just have to protect you."

Angeal laughed. He stood up, planted a hand on the boulder, and propelled himself over it to land in the centre of the path. "Let's move." His footsteps crunched rhythmically over the gravel, implacably even.

A trio of ninjas dropped out of the branches overhead and tapped down with soft thumps behind him. They vacillated a moment, spun their weapons around until their lances pointed toward Angeal, and they lunged forward.

Angeal waved a hand briefly over his shoulder as he continued walking.

Cloud ripped his sword from its sheath and launched himself up, ignoring the deep groove he'd scored into the stone in passing.

He plunged onto the first private's back, bearing down with his knees and bringing up his sword. The blade bit into ninja's neck, knocking off his helmet and severing his spine. Spinning around and kicking up a shower of dust with the side of his boot, he thrust his sword through another private's gut when the man recoiled, an arm over his face.

The last ninja, a captain by his armour, stabbed toward his head with his lance, and Cloud twisted his sword, yanking it free as he ducked and pivoted. A quick swing, and the sergeant's weapon snapped. Cloud brought his arm up and around, and the man's head bounced once, clanking, as it hit the ground.

When he caught up to Angeal, the First was standing still in a small clearing, looking up at the pinpricks of stars above Mount Tamblin.

Cloud jogged to a halt. He looked at Angeal's back, and he turned his head up toward the sky.

"Embrace your dreams," Angeal said quietly.

"Angeal?"

Angeal glanced at him, and he shook his head, making a short dismissive noise. "Just talking to myself."

The First stepped forward, pushing past a tangle of low-hanging branches, and then the squat shape of Fort Tamblin sat quietly in the dark before them. Light spilled from several of the low windows, and aside from the flicker of torchlight, the fort was still. An expectant tension seemed to boil from the flattened ground, and Cloud's knuckles cracked when he tightened his fists.

He'd set up a snare once, outside a hare burrow on Mount Nibel, further up than the kids were allowed to wander. He remembered the strings of blood-rusted pelt hanging from the hare's foot. He'd stood still, staring up into sulfur-yellow eyes until the dragon had flicked its barbed tail and turned away, its awkward gait making it sway wide as it walked.

He closed his eyes, and he relaxed his fingers.

He kept his head low as he darted forward.

Angeal shifted, resting on a knee, and he reached over his shoulder. The Buster sword cut a gap in the sky, outlined in faded blue. He stilled, the grooves ornamenting the blade casting hazy shadows over its plane and reflecting a nebulous meshwork of light over the bridge of his nose. Angeal clasped his fingers against the dull edge before bringing the sword up to rest against his forehead. His fingers curved backward as they tensed, and quickly loosened again.

Cloud watched, waiting, until the First hooked the Buster back onto its hasp with a fluid chk.

"I've never seen you use that sword," he said.

"If I use it, it'll get dirty, worn, and rusted," Angeal said. He shook his head. "That would be a waste."

"Isn't it heavy, to carry it around like that?"

Angeal looked at him, a twist on his lips. "Worry about your mission, not me." He tilted his head up at the fortress. "Keep it stealthy. I'd rather not have the entire regiment stationed here rushing around looking for us until we're ready to blow this place sky high. Take down all enemy troops you encounter."

Cloud glanced at the dull gleam of the Buster sword briefly before nodding sharply. "Sir!"

"Mission start!"

* * *

Cloud sprang up, tucking his arms tight for speed. He kicked out a leg, slamming a boot against a tree trunk and using the recoil to spring up toward the fort's thick walls. Amongst the rustling of leaves shed to the ground, he dropped, bending his knees and catching his hands against the stone floor as he landed lightly.

There was a quick shout, and the tap of running footsteps as Wutai troops approached to inspect the noise. Cloud hopped a short fence at his back and pressed flat into the shadows. Breathing softly through parted lips, he darted off against the wall.

They were in an austere courtyard, the tall gates of the main stronghold overlooking the empty grounds and several covered corridors lining the outer wall. There was a Wutai private nearby, clenching his gun-lance tightly as he stared up at the walls.

Cloud reached out and clamped a hand over the man's mouth as he yanked him backwards and thrust his sword under the man's ribcage up to the hilt. He let the ninja sag off his blade to the ground, and he dragged the body behind an ornate pillar. Cloud moved on.

The next Wutai private gasped just as Cloud swung his sword through the man's neck, and the ninja beside him whirled around directly into Cloud's downward cleave. His blade bit diagonally into the man's collar, severing his spine. Someone saw him, and he raised his sword to block a flurry of bullets before launching himself into a roll and coming up behind the ninja. Dingy light flashed over his blade as he ripped it around, and he jumped again, dragging his legs high to avoid the jab of a long lance. Grabbing the shaft with one hand, he brought his sword down as he landed, and the wood splintered in his grip. Flipping the short stalk still attached to the lance head to shift his grip, he raised his arm and slung it as hard as he could toward the sergeant readying his firearm. It sank into the man's chest until the shaft was nearly swallowed.

The last ninja shot at him from the middle of the courtyard, and Cloud ducked behind a chipped pillar, shrapnel and stone dust fogging the air briefly. Readying his sword, he cleared the low rail of the corridor in a hop and kicked off it to throw himself upward. He came down blade first, driving the point through the ninja's throat and into the ground as the man toppled backwards. He heard the cracks of gunfire, and wrenching his sword free, he rolled, bullets raising plumes of dust where his head had been. Cloud scrambled to his feet as he dashed for cover.

The gates were outlined by moonlight when Cloud peered out from a dark crevice. He saw a couple of helmeted forms crouched over their long guns over the heavy doors. The heads turned, quick little shifts, as they scanned the open space. Keeping his back to the wall, Cloud followed the rough stone. When he saw the narrow staircase winding upwards, he grinned.

Cloud flattened himself at the top of the stairs, slithering forward on his elbows and surveying the guards with narrowed eyes. He unchambered his Pre-empt, slid it into his pouch, and withdrew another smooth sphere. He slotted the materia into his bracer with a soft click, and he raised his hand.

He felt the drain of energy into the orb and cupped his other palm to shield the glow.

There was a series of sharp snapping noises, like the cracking of a thin frozen sheet, and jagged shards of ice magic collected over the snipers before driving downward, piercing through their helmets with short, brittle rasps.

"Out-ninja the fucking ninja," he muttered to himself.

* * *

Cloud slapped down a Wutai private's weapon, using the momentum to swing his sword around into a backhanded grip. He leaped forward as he brought his hand up and around, and a line of blood speckled the walls. Ragged lines began to trickle down, bleeding splotches into the flimsy material. He left the ninja where he fell and stepped forward. The floor was lined with some sort of dry woven mat that depressed with crinkly noises under his boots, and he glanced at the translucent paper walls with a frown. They were lit by a warm glow, probably the oil lamps he'd been seeing in some of the corridors.

He heard a clamour and the drum of footsteps in the distance behind him. Reaching out, he pushed at the dark wooden frame to his side.

It didn't move.

"Balls."

He tried another segment, and it slithered smoothly aside. He slipped in through the gap and the door frame whispered as he slid it shut behind him.

Cloud glanced around. Living quarters, he realized. Whoever decorated the place had been heavy handed with the hanging draperies. A low writing table was littered with rolled up papers. He pressed himself flat against a wooden partition, the edges of its slats digging into his back, and he listened as ninja thumped by the room.

He waited a while longer before crossing the room and reaching out for the sliding door.

There was a quiet noise behind him.

Cloud spun around, pulling his sword free from its sheath as he turned.

It was a small woman. She held a hanging lamp in one hand and the other was fisted tightly in the front of her loose robe. She stared at him, her scrutiny drifting from his eyes—the mako glow, he realized—to his broadsword. She inched backward, her mouth opening, but there was no sound.

There was an inquisitive noise from the low door at her back, and Cloud barely saw the man before he'd wrenched the woman behind him and stood, baring his teeth and fumbling for the sword at his waist. He snapped something imperious, the curt sounds of a challenge that Cloud didn't understand, and he pointed the sword at Cloud.

Cloud pressed his mouth tight, and he narrowed his eyes.

His wife said something shrilly, but the man shook his head. He raised his sword and yelled as he charged.

Cloud twisted his wrist and blocked the strike. The ninja's sword rattled against his. He stepped into the clash, holding his broadsword with one hand and pushing off to the side as he raised his other. He grabbed the back of the man's head and shoved downward as he brought up his knee. There was a loud, slippery crunching noise, and the man grunted as he staggered back, blood welling around his fingers and dripping onto his clothes from where he covered his nose.

The Wutai soldier snarled, placing his bloody hand back onto the hilt of his sword and settling into his stance.

He was fast. The man dashed forward, slashing his sword from the side. Cloud brought his weapon up, intending to block, but there was a harsh ripping sound before the long blade caught on the door frame and ground to a crawl against the wood.

Cloud let his knees buckle, and he sagged under the whistle of the ninja's sword. His grip was tight around the hilt of his sword, and he yanked as he fell. His broadsword dragged free and drove forward. The ninja dodged to the side, hopping back and twisting his body. With a vicious bellow, the man pivoted and thrust his sword forward as he rushed Cloud.

Cloud propelled himself awkwardly to his feet, and he reeled a bit as he raised a boot and pounded it against the side of the writing table. It flew, knocking into the ninja's shins with a solid crack. Cloud slapped the flat of his blade against the man's sword with a jarring clang, creating enough of a gap for him to lean in and shove his broadsword through the man's gut.

Cloud stared at the man's face, where dried patches of blood from his nose had crusted along his chin, painting a flaking residue. The ninja's sword dropped to the ground with a clatter.

Cloud stepped back, the ninja's limp weight straining at his grip. He looked up to where the woman stood. Her mouth worked, opening wide soundlessly. She swayed as she took a slow step.

He saw the sleek casing of the gun under her whitened knuckles a moment before she raised it in her arms and screamed and screamed.

Bullets ripped the paper walls to shreds as Cloud flung himself into the fragile material, the wooden frame splintering loudly as he crashed through. He rolled, coming to a halt only when he thumped against the opposite wall. He crawled to his feet and backed away, covering his mouth against the veil of rock dust raised by the barrage driving into the outer wall.

She was still screaming.

Cloud fingered the hard curve of materia in his pouch for a moment, and then he dropped his hand to his side. There were jumbled shouts and thudding steps coming down the corridor. He sheathed his sword and darted off along the hall, the roar of noise still behind him.

"Sorry," he mumbled.

* * *

Cloud stopped in front of an open doorway framed by a heavy stone arch. He paused, turned an ear to the side, and he drew his sword, stepping into the blind spot to the side of the door.

A Wutai sergeant dashed through the arch, followed by two privates. They reached a junction in the corridors, and the sergeant raised a hand, peering carefully around the corner. He barked an order. When there was no response, he growled and turned around, just as Cloud stepped into his two-handed swing.

Cloud was wiping the congealing blood from his blade across the ninja's clothes when there was a sharp buzzing. He jerked, and he flipped open his PHS.

"Angeal?" Cloud said.

"I've finished setting the charges." There was a bit of static. "Come to the central area." Angeal paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was clear and dry. "Feel free to cause a riot."

Cloud grimaced. "I wasn't that bad."

"I noticed," Angeal said. "They still don't have a description of you beyond something about a demon. Good work."

"How do you know?"

"We're tapped into their radio system," Angeal said. "Anything to report?" he continued.

Cloud was quiet for a moment. He swallowed. "Nope, not a problem here," he said.

Angeal snorted. "Alright. I'll be waiting."

The line went dead.

Cloud stashed the PHS in his pocket as he stepped out into open air. He looked up at the ornamented doors of a central building, and specks of spray from the fountains tapped against his exposed skin.

When the voice cut through the muted chatter of water, he dropped into a crouch and raised a hand to his sword.

"First, a people weak in the pursuit of knowledge."

Cloud glanced around.

"Second, those protecting the Wutai homeland."

Cloud saw the girl, and he straightened, his arm falling.

"Third, an ugly Shinra Soldier!"

She took the steps in a wild leap, and she ran as if momentum was the only thing keeping her standing. She slapped her hands on her hips as she stopped in front of him, thrusting her chest out. Her knees looked bulbous against her thin legs, and a wide scrape oozed a film of dusty blood on her right shin.

"Prepare for your punishment!" she announced shrilly. "I'm Wutai's strongest warrior! With me here, you shall not advance any further!"

Cloud frowned, staring until she shifted her shoulders like they prickled. "You shouldn't be here, kid."

Her eyes went moon round. "You're the one who doesn't belong!"

"Look, I'm serious. We're about to blow the sh—blow this fort up. You should go home." He pointed at her leg. "Are you hurt? Can you escape alright by yourself?"

She glanced down before biting her lip and pursing her mouth up at him. "They said that someone killed the Dajiang in his room, and then they pushed me in here and told me to hide and I fell."

"The Dajiang is the guy in charge around here?"

She stopped in mid-nod, and her face contorted into a scowl. "I'm not telling you anything, Shinra scum! You're not blowing this fort up because I'm going to defeat you here and stop your progress!" She thumped her fists against Cloud's belt. "Take that!"

Cloud sighed. "Kid—"

The girl raised her fists again, and he caught a flash of metal between her knuckles. He snapped his hand up and closed his fingers tightly around her wrist.

She bit off a sharp cry as something tumbled from her hand. She tore her arm away and gave him a poisonous glare as she whirled and ran. Cloud bent down and picked up the sliver. He groaned, prodding at the dull edge of the toy, and he watched it bend like rubber under his hand.

There were shouts around him as ninja poured into the inner courtyard and pointed their spears at him, spreading out to try to surround him. One of them said something in a thickly accented voice muffled by his helmet, and Cloud drew his sword.

"Crescent unit?"

He ducked under a spear blow whipped toward his head, and he rotated into a slash. Splotches of blood splattered against his cheek just under his eye, uncomfortably hot as they started running, and he blinked reflexively. It smeared over the arm he raised to his face, mingling with the ratty coat of dust he wore.

"Start a riot, huh," Cloud said. He raised his sword in both hands, blade parallel to the ground, and he saw the glare of orange light belch from the blade as he charged.

* * *

The inside of the central pagoda was hollow and round, the ceiling stretching up out of sight. Red and gold walls shone under lamplight, but Cloud could see the patches of disrepair, the colour worn thin like cloth washed too many times.

"Angeal?" he called. He heard a breath of a muffled echo, and he stared up into the darkness above.

He saw the shift of indistinct shadows a moment before he dove into a roll, and the impact of something massive striking the floor made the walls quake and the ground jolt under his hands. Cloud saw the polished wood of the floor buckle and crack where the tomahawk impacted, mini mountain ranges surrounding a shattered crater. The giant grunted, tugging at the handle of his weapon.

Cloud felt the shift of movement behind him, and he twisted, digging a hand and a knee into the ground to push himself up and away. The huge foot had a woven mat of a sandal strapped to it, flapping off the heel as it clipped his side and sent him hurtling into a wall. There was a sharp slap as his back slammed into the wood, and Cloud thumped to the floor. He wheezed, spit running into his mouth, trying to draw breath into his deflated diaphragm, and he dug his fingers into his thighs as he dragged himself to his feet. He ducked and pushed away from the wall, more tumble than run, and a sweeping backhand passed over his head, sending up a gust of wind that buffeted Cloud's neck.

He kept moving, keeping to the wall and sometimes hopping up to cling to it like a fly sticking to glass before gravity caught on and he slid back down again. He felt around his ribs. Intact. Screaming like a bitch in heat, but intact.

The giants stomped around, their movements graceless and ponderous. They swung their axes at him, hard enough to crumple stone, but they'd managed to get in each other's way as they spun slowly, chasing Cloud, and the one that received a deep score over its bulky bicep keened loud and shrill enough that it felt like the wax was melting out of Cloud's ears.

He skidded to a halt behind them, and he raised his hand as they struggled to turn around without slamming their shoulders into each other or the axe-carved walls. Spitting fireballs hurtled toward the giants, splashing against their backs and filling the air with the greasy stench of seared flesh. They screeched and thrashed, the hard, blackened remains of the skin over the burns snapping apart like charcoal and oozing.

Cloud shot forward, narrowing missing a quick swipe of a bulky arm as he leaned into his sword, biting deep into the backs of the legs of one of the giants. His sword cut into the underside of one knee and sliced into the calf of the other leg. The monster collapsed, its arms rising to catch itself. It was too slow, and its face hit the floor with a hollow thud before its head bounced. The tomahawk that had been in its hand clattered, spinning a bit, as it jumped and skittered across the floor.

Cloud winced, fighting the urge to clap his hands over his ears. The shrieking continued, and he made an awkward hopping backpedal when the other giant swiped at him with its axe. Edging around the fallen giant and darting up to the monster's head, he paused, looking down at the beady eye, shot through with streaks of red, when it trained unblinking on him.

When he stabbed downward, the point of his blade caught briefly on the juts of the giant's spine. His arms vibrated as the sword rasped over bone, and the weapon jerked when the resistance suddenly passed, tearing a wide gash in the skin.

The giant made a short whimpering noise, quickly drowned out by the enraged bellow behind Cloud. He swung around his pinned sword to face the other monster, and he dragged hard at the handle as he looked up at the descending axe. The giant's hand twisted as it dropped, Cloud saw. Either as a defect of its training or because it intended to squash him like a cockroach with the flat of the axeblade.

"Move!" he growled, yanking again at his sword.

It barely jiggled.

"Fuck!"

Cloud let go of the hilt, springing back a couple of steps before jumping straight up, tugging himself into a flip for height. Just as he dropped, touching for a moment down on the flat of the tomahawk, the giant shifted into a sideways swipe and yanked his feet off balance as the weapon moved.

Shouting, Cloud thudded to the ground in the wake of the monster's swing. He rolled, bringing his knees up and ignoring the sting in his ass, and he made a clumsy dash for the wall. Running up the surface and kicking off before he started to skid, Cloud reached out as he flew, fingers snagging on the giant's collar, and he jolted to a halt.

The giant gagged and choked, and it began to spin around like a dog chasing its tail.

Cloud gritted his teeth tight, and he wound one of the armour straps attached to the giant's shoulder around his hand. The edges of the hard leather dug into his palm when he released the other hand and brought it up, materia blazing violently at his wrist.

Thunder rained down, point blank, upon the giant's head, the crackling and sizzling sounds fusing with the giant's scream to form an ear-splitting soup of noise that made Cloud's bones buzz. His fingers were going numb. He poured his strength into the materia until it was incandescent, its heat permeating his bracer and boring what felt like a hole through his skin.

The giant was still screaming when it collapsed to the floor.

Cloud wrenched his hand free of the straps and hopped a few steps away before he let himself fall to the ground. He lay flat, staring up where the ceiling vanished above and cradling his hand at his chest while blood rushed back into his fingers and made them sting and hum. He tried to bend his knuckles.

He hadn't felt this shitty since the time his cadet corps had gotten their hands on a Thundaga for the first time and the bastard beside him had misfired and sent a bolt earthing through Cloud before blowing the reinforced steel door off its hinges. He pressed his shoulders into the cool planks of the floor, and his head swam like someone had pulled the plug out of the bottom of his brain and it was swizzling down the drain.

The giant made another croaking noise, and then it was silent. The splintered floor creaked under Cloud's back as he gulped at the air.

"Impressive, to have survived the Vajradhara."

Cloud tensed, his eyes flitting back and forth over the shadows along the walls. "You gonna show yourself?" he said, after a moment.

There was a patch of movement, and Cloud focussed on the glitter of gold in the ninja's armour, murky in the weak light above. He'd seen that dragon before.

"Crescent unit, wasn't it?" Cloud said, pulling himself to his feet. "I just wasted a bunch of you guys outside."

"For which you shall pay," the ninja barked. "I am Crescent unit Plenum, commander of the Full Moon, and I will avenge my team!"

" _Bull_ shit," Cloud said loudly. "What did you do, hang around out of sight while you sent your team in to get slaughtered?"

There was a jarring thump, and Cloud's back hit the wall. He'd brought up his hands in time to close the fingers of one hand over a bare portion of the shaft of the ninja's gun-lance, and he braced his other wrist against the flat of the lance blade, shoving upward as Plenum bore down on him.

"Don't you fucking preach to me about honour," the ninja rasped, his voice low and the formal lilt to his speech gone. "I learned my honour in the streets of Midgar and under the thumb of Shinra, and every  _fucking_  day one of you honourable assholes tried to shove my head through a wall because of the colour of my skin."

Cloud strained against the lance, trying to slide his feet back to give himself enough leverage. "You're a Soldier," he hissed. "You're a traitor!"

Plenum laughed, sharp and hoarse. "If you're going to point fingers and call names, you'll be here for a while. There are plenty of us 'traitors' in this war."

"What are you—"

"They were pretty surprised, too, the other team of Soldiers."

Cloud narrowed his eyes. "What other team?"

"Soldiers die just as pretty," the ninja said, nearly singing his words.

Cloud shot forward, winding his arm around the shaft of the gun-lance and jerking up his elbow. The wooden shaft crunched, splitting into raggedly fletched pieces, and Cloud slapped the blade aside and surged, his fingers digging into the ninja's throat as he hooked his heel behind one of the man's knees and shoved.

He bared his teeth and pinned the ninja to the floor, staring down at the helmet knocked crooked by the impact.

" _What_ other team?"

Plenum didn't say anything, and a wide grin edged over his face as his head shifted just a bit, as if he was looking over Cloud's shoulder.

Cloud launched himself to the side, rolling and bringing his knee up to push to his feet just as the third giant pounded into the ground. The ninja had turned onto one shoulder before the giant's foot landed on his torso, snapping his ribs like glass and deflating his head like a squashed, overripe grape. The spray hit Cloud's uniform a moment before the giant swung its flail and the iron head the size of a dinner table connected with Cloud's stomach and lifted him off his feet.

His head snapped back and cracked against the pillar behind him when he rebounded off of it, and he sagged to the ground.

Cloud looked up at the giant shuffling toward him, arm raised to crush, and he squinted hard against the black edges to his vision. His legs felt like jelly, quivering and flopping back down as soon as he tried putting any weight on it. The blackness swallowed him.

" _Oi, you're not giving up, are you?"_

Cloud jumped, and he pried his eyelids open. His arm shook as he raised it, and he grabbed his wrist with his other hand as every materia studding his bracer flashed to life.

The flail had already begun its descent.

There was the sound of air parting over oiled steel.

The flail, jerked off target, thumped to the ground beside Cloud's leg and caused the floor to shudder. Slowly, the giant crumpled.

Cloud watched Angeal straighten, the edge of the Buster sword gleaming like placid water in the lamplight. The First kept level eyes on the fallen giant while he hooked the Buster back onto its harness, and he reached out, tugging Cloud's sword free from where it was lodged in a trunk-sized neck as he passed. He stopped in front of Cloud.

The walls of his airway felt like they were fused together and sliding, grating apart with skin curdling slowness.

He raised his head, hacked like his lungs were stuffed with dust, and he tried again.

"Wasn't it important that you didn't use that sword?" Cloud said.

Angeal looked at him hard for a second, but there was a smile on his lips when he stretched out his hand.

"Come on."

* * *

Every step jarred Cloud's ribs. He shuffled to a pause, his eyes squeezed to slivers, and he wrapped an arm around his side, drawing in a deep breath that sent the nerves in his side into a frenzied dance.

"Sit down." Angeal's voice was short.

Cloud shook his head. "Just catching my breath."

"Cloud," Angeal snapped. "Sit down."

There was a heavy hand on his shoulder, and Cloud's legs wobbled. The mountain path was cut flat, and the smooth bark of trees rose up out of raised banks on either side. Cloud leaned against the damp grass, and it quickly soaked through patches of his uniform and prickled his skin.

Angeal's fingers prodded his side, and he twitched.

"Stay still," the First said. He flattened a wide palm. "Feels solid," he said after a while. "Probably just strained."

"Said I was fine," Cloud said.

"Really?" Angeal said, a moment before his fingers tightened.

Cloud nearly bit through his tongue cutting off a yelp.

"You've been seeing and hearing things for weeks, Cloud."

Cloud didn't respond. His hand fisted in the fabric of his uniform.

"Either you talk to me or I submit a request for a psych eval when we get back."

"I'm not crazy," Cloud said loudly.

The fire had died down behind them, and with a brittle crunching sound that echoed through the valley, a piece of the fort's roof collapsed, sending up a flaring geyser of sparks. An agitated beetle of some sort thumped against the side of Cloud's head and buzzed its wings furiously, tangling itself further. Wincing, Cloud reached up, closing his fingers around the tapered edges of the insect's shell, and it panicked in his hand as he pulled it out of his hair. He threw it into the air, watching as it tumbled and dropped like a stone before catching itself on its wings and zipping away into the leaves.

Cloud wiped his palm against his pants, and he shrugged. "I'll figure it out."

Angeal's jaw tightened, shifting under his skin, and he trained flat eyes on Cloud.

There was the roar of an explosion down the path. Blue smoke ballooned out, rising up over the trees.

Cloud shoved off the embankment. Angeal had already vanished around the bend in the path, and he leaned forward a bit, testing his knees. Pulling his sword free as it ground in its scabbard and grimacing at the dirt coating the blade and rasping at the movement, he flicked his wrist a few times, spinning the sword until he was satisfied, and he ran.

The gutted shell of a military truck lay on its side, spitting tongues of flame and stinking of burning rubber. The neatly tailored jacket of the man flanked by MPs was singed black at the edges, curling crisply as he crouched behind the base of the truck. One of the MPs snapped a cartridge into place and rolled to his knees, turning and sighting along the barrel of his gun.

There was a flash of dull red, and a short, shrill sound. The MP slumped.

His killer waved his wide daggers, weaving sinuously as he shifted from foot to foot. The red-tinted helmet turned to Cloud, its movements languid and jerky in turns.

Cloud raised his sword.

Angeal slashed upward, the broadsword in his hands catching the curved edge of the daggers and scraping loudly.

"Get Director Lazard out of here!" Angeal snapped, glancing over his shoulder at Cloud before thrusting forward, disengaging his blade, and bringing it around into a crushing sweep.

"I'm not gonna just  _leave_ —"

The First slammed his fist into a throat. "Go, Soldier! I can handle this!"

Cloud snapped his mouth shut, and he sheathed his weapon with a sharp click as he bounded over a pair of legs, one of the knees bent the wrong way, poking out from under the truck. Skidding a bit on the loose leaves underfoot, he grabbed at a thin shoulder. "Director!"

Lazard twisted around. "Soldier Second Class Strife!" He ducked at the sound of a fireball pounding into the truck and sending tall flames licking up at the boiling sky.

Cloud heaved the man to his feet, his back straining as he leaned forward, pressing his hand against the Director's nape to keep their heads down low. "Move, sir! I'll accept all praise later."

Lazard gave a short laugh, more cough than anything. "True, you performed most admirably during your mission to capture Fort Tamblin. Your strategic actions in seeking out the commander of the fort threw the enemy forces into disarray and prevented them from launching a coordinated counterassault."

Cloud's mouth thinned.

The sound of gunfire was still loud behind them, but the smell of smoke no longer stung the back of his throat. He turned his head to the side quickly and spat, sooty phlegm glistening blackly on the ground, but his grip on the Director's arm never faltered.

Lazard's mouth twisted into half a smile, and he cleared his throat before he continued. "In short, you skilfully supported Angeal as a diversionary force and successfully allowed the main combat unit to take the enemy's final seat of power. Congratulations."

The cool air of the forest path raised bumps on Cloud's skin after the heat of the gas fire. "Thank you, sir," he said tightly.

His PHS whirred, vibrating in his pocket, and he snatched at it.

It was mail from Kunsel.

_Answer my fucking messages! What's going on over there? Are you alive or not?_

He tapped his thumb over the keys, and they chimed softly upon depression.

_Busy. War._

He watched the little envelope icon swoop across the screen cheerily, and for a brief moment, he considered hurling the thing at a tree. He pressed another button.

The words "No new messages" flashed at him a couple of times before the screen flipped back to his map. The casing creaked as Cloud's fingers tightened.

"Soldier?"

Cloud stashed the PHS into his pocket. "Sorry, sir."

"Director!"

A couple of scouts stood just off the path, and they threw their hands up in salute.

Cloud watched the fuss for a moment. He scuffed his boots over the pebbled ground, resisting the urge to check his silent PHS again, and he said, "I'll, uh, go back. Help Angeal."

Lazard tipped his head. "Go."

Cloud jogged a few feet before he stopped. He frowned, and he turned to Lazard. "I encountered an enemy ninja who suggested that the main unit experienced difficulties," he said, slowly.

Lazard's face gave nothing away. "The mission was a success," he said quietly.

Cloud waited.

"But casualties were high."

Cloud felt his shoulders grind together with the effort of staying still. He nodded.

* * *

Cloud splayed a hand against a tree, and the thin vertical cracks running through the bark pinched at his palm. He dug the fingers of his other hand into the tightly stretched flesh over his ribs, and it hurt like something was trying to claw its way out of his skin with little pronged nails, but the pressure was a welcome distraction from the nagging ache. He closed his eyes. He'd be damned if he was going to limp around like three-legged dog.

He took a slow breath, and he straightened his back.

He'd only taken a few steps before the growling started.

Cloud twisted, his hand rising to his sword, and he leaped backward as the thing surged toward him and raised its paw to rake down. Heat seared through his arm, and he tugged his elbow in tight, glancing down at the row of tears in his skin, running the length of his forearm. Hissing through his teeth, he shook the dribbles of blood to the ground. The thing's claws extended and contracted, digging narrow gashes into the dirt. Cloud watched it as it pranced, springing from side to side, and its leonine mane bobbed under the lashing of its long, thin tail.

He jumped over the next swipe, his sword arcing a wide circle as he dragged it around and up, flaying open the thick hide covering the monster's foreleg and exposing cords of muscle shot through with netted veins. The monster bellowed, swinging its body around to whip its tail towards Cloud's throat. He kicked out, but the snake-like tail bent on impact, spiralled around his leg, and wrapped itself around his other boot before it yanked his feet out from under him.

With a yell, Cloud toppled. He curled in midair, bearing down with both hands on the backhanded grip he had on the hilt of his sword. He lay still, his jaw still vibrating with the force with which his teeth clacked together when he landed on the beast's barbed vertebrae, and as the monster's back sagged, its lungs collapsing under his weight, he slid off onto the churned earth. His sword stood swaying by his shoulder, wedged between the monster's ribs.

The claw marks on his arm were raised like bars, sealed shut by the fluids oozing from the scratches.

Cloud clenched and released his fist, and a small trickle of blood beaded off his wrist. He stood, reaching out for his sword.

"Shit."

Lion beasts crowded the mountain trail. One leaped, sailing over his head as he dove. Cloud came up running.

" _Shit!_ "

The thrum of his pulse thundered in his ears, a counterpoint to the yowling at his heels. He saw the prone forms on trampled grass, and he hurdled them a moment before a blaze of light scorched his eyelids. Heat roared past him, and the offensive scent of burning fur crowded into his nostrils.

He heard the screeches behind him as he thumped to the ground and skidded his knees raw. Charred ashy heaps littered the trail, and the monsters that hadn't been swallowed by the fire whimpered as they scrabbled to escape.

Cloud stared as Ifrit tilted his horned head to the sky and roared, strands of flame clinging to his massive fists and twining turns around his crimson arms. Cracks split the earth with sharp pops as it desiccated in the furnace.

Ifrit fixed Cloud with slitted red eyes.

Ignoring the reek of singed skin peeling, Cloud reached for his broadsword. His lungs screamed for air, but he held his mouth closed against the sear at the back of his throat. Squinting his parched eyes nearly closed, he tensed.

A blast of pressure rolled flames like a wave, and Cloud flung his arms over his eyes.

The Masamune glowed like a ripe forge. It streaked, leaving light trails emblazoned into Cloud's cornea and silent heat muffling his ears. He watched Ifrit jerk, suspended for a moment with his hooves lifting up from the ground.

Noise slammed into Cloud's eardrums and froth-like fire blared through the clearing as the summon's body disintegrated into pure energy.

Cloud's hands burned, pressed hard into the levelled earth, and warmth dripped slowly from his ears. Fragile clinks and pops sounded as charred bark cooled and shrivelled, mostly drowned out by the sound of his violent heaving.

His hand shook when he lifted an arm—fuck it had crusty blood all over it—and swiped it over his mouth, and he looked up.

Sephiroth rested the Masamune against a thigh as he crouched over the bodies fused to the ground by melted armour. The helmets were distorted, their surfaces glistening oily like liquefied plastic, but their shapes were familiar.

Cloud opened his mouth, and a harsh croak came out. He swallowed. "These guys aren't Wutai," he said.

Sephiroth reached out and tugged off a helm. It rocked a bit, its dented surface settling against the ground.

It was Soldier issue, tainted a deep rust colour.

"Genesis," Sephiroth muttered, bent over the slack face.

Cloud craned his neck to see. "The missing First?"

Sephiroth didn't respond, hooking his fingers under the latch of another helmet. An identical face tipped onto a blister-split ear. A scowl creased over his mouth, and Sephiroth tilted his head. "Where's Angeal?" he said.

Cloud dragged himself to his feet, shuffling in a slow circle. He stiffened. A deep rut stood in stark relief against the surface of the boulder squatting in the path, a patch of crinkled grass in its lee. Soot covered it, and it was sticky to the touch. If he canted his sword, he could see the matching abrasion on its blade, fresh scratches painted over top of it since.

"Tch." Sephiroth stood. "He's gone with them."

Cloud spun around, his teeth pressed tight enough to ache. "Angeal would never—"

"Angeal is a traitor." The sharp words cut into his.

Slowly, Cloud pulled the curl of his lip down.

Sephiroth held the Masamune close to his hip as he moved, and Cloud watched the echo of moonlight off the blade. The glare made his vision fuzz.

The leather of his gloves rasped over his knuckles as his hand squeezed against the furrow left in the stone at his back. Cloud screwed his eyes shut and hammered the side of his fist into the rock.

* * *

TBC


	4. Hail and Farewell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and settings are property of Square Enix. No profit is being sought from the writing of this fanfiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
> 
> I honestly have no idea how I managed to finish this while Theatrhythm Final Fantasy slowly sucks my life away.
> 
> In other, more exciting news, though, the wonderful, fantastic Poisonberries has graciously agreed to beta read this thing for me! Raucous cheers ensue! I've never found anyone willing to edit my chaptered stuff before, though, so I'm just causing trouble for her all day long with my lack of foresight.
> 
> Much thanks to anyone sticking this story out with me.

 

Cloud wondered who'd folded the scarf.

He was utter shit at laundry himself. He still remembered the week he spent wearing splotchy pink underwear in Basic because it was that or go without, and it had pissed down for days and days already, so that the training yards were soup. And when the cadets crawled on their bellies under yards and yards of barbed wire, they quickly figured out who could swim.

Things he couldn't see grew in the soup. They'd itched, worming past the fibres of his sweats, and Cloud had spent all five of his glorious minutes under scalding hot water scrubbing his skin red and raw.

Some jackass called Acosta had hung the pink things over the industrial size towel rack the third day. Cloud still had the pale glossy scar just above his hairline from the cut he'd gotten smashing his head into Acosta's teeth.

Cloud smoothed his palms over the starchy fabric covering his thighs. He'd taken his dress uniform to the cleaner above Sector 8 for it. The old man who ran it came from Mideel, and he always shouted when he talked because he was deaf in one ear, grinned his tobacco yellow grin, and panted when he strained to reach up and try to rub his knuckles into Cloud's head. It was better than having wrinkled pants, though.

The scarf, too, was brilliant white and folded so meticulously the edge cast a razor line of a shadow, and Cloud wondered again who it was that Lazard had hired to lay out the bodies. All things considered, they probably had a ton of experience.

Acosta had ended up with the bomb squad in the Regs, Cloud remembered. They'd worked one mission together, back when there were enough Thirds to send them along with all the recon squads as muscle, during which the man had carefully and deliberately ignored Cloud. He'd heard that Acosta had died about a month later. Unmarked landmine.

Cloud ran his eyes over the white fabric again. They stuttered at the patch under the chin where light didn't reach, and they moved on.

Cloud shifted his weight, and the metal rungs of the stool squeaked. He stretched out his legs, flexing his toes against the stiff material of his new boots. They gleamed of black polish under the fluorescent lighting. The heel creaked against the tiles.

He'd managed to burn the heavy rubber soles of his last pair into cinderblock slag, compressed to pencil thinness in places. He'd left an ashy black trail on the ceramic tile from the tarmac to the elevator doors before the bottle blonde receptionist had screeched at him.

There were six caskets. Five from the mission that ended the war, and one was some silly sap Cloud didn't know who'd gone for a piss in the wrong place.

Over his head, the long bulbs hummed their unbroken drone, leaving squeaky little scratches up and down his nerves.

He looked down at his feet. He could barely see a minute little hump in the boots, where his big toe was scratching at the tight leather. He nudged at it again, pressing up at the surface until a dull stab of pain ran its way up his shin.

They looked weird. Too shiny and too new.

He flexed again.

The drone was sinking into his skull. He opened his mouth wide, rolling his lower jaw out and up, feeling the hinges click by his ears. He snapped his teeth together. They buzzed.

Cloud let his eyes fall shut, and he hissed a slow breath. He leaned forward in the stool, balancing his elbows on his knees, and he looked up at Evans's still, blank face.

The Thirds were in the hall two floors down. There was a lot more room there. This room was a sterile box, white light bouncing off of white walls and white tiles, and in it, Cloud sat alone with the six Seconds —six boxes, listening to the rattle of his brain. They lay neatly, three by three, clean hands folded primly over their diaphragms in a way they'd probably never willingly adopt.

Cloud's eyes drifted over the silver braid edging the black lapels of the jacket and ambling over the flat face of the epaulettes. He stifled a snort. Evans hated the ceremonial uniform. Evans bitched endlessly when he had to deck himself out.

Evans thought that anything he couldn't lie on his back in, engine oil running down his arms and pooling in his armpits, under the bed of a machine was thoroughly useless, though.

Cloud leaned back, his spine popping in the quiet hum.

He looked at the scarf again, stark white against Evans's ink-coloured skin. He'd been there, helping the grunts carry the stretcher boards up the pebbled metal plank onto the ship. There'd been a stain under Evans's head, the blood dried black against the wood. It hadn't been big. Evans had probably already finished most of his bleeding out before they got to him.

The shredded edges of the gash stretching from one side of his throat to the other had probably been hell to sew up. The scarf wasn't tied, simply draped over his neck to make him presentable.

Probably.

Cloud wasn't about to pull it away to check.

The black of his slacks made the stupid thin white gloves sticking out of his pocket look even brighter. Cloud flattened his hands over his knees. The skin was chapped over every one of his knuckles, tiny flaps of dead skin crinkling like accordion folds. He rubbed a thumb over the back of his index finger, and the odd sensation of rippling ridges mixed with the pinpricks of pain from the damaged skin. Fuck, this was probably some kind of record.

He'd washed everything he owned the night he got back. His apartment had a little bathtub, just big enough for him to sit in with his legs crammed up to his chin. He'd keyed himself in, stripped right there, and filled the room with steam. The water had turned red and brown and black as it ran through the heavy fabric. Then some kind of foamy residue had floated to the surface and clung to his boiled hands.

He'd drained the tub four times before the water stopped painting the porcelain red.

He'd stood under the spray after that, watching sludgy scum swirl down the drain and trying to remember how much blood an average human man possessed.

Cloud picked at a hangnail dangling out at the side of his finger, and it started to ooze. He sucked it into his mouth, and the sharp taste of metal spread itself across his tongue. Crimson beaded up over the rip again.

Cloud made a short noise in the back of his throat, and he dug a thumb into his palm, leaning forward and barring his arm over his knee to stop its fidgeting. Evans had always griped about that.

The Seconds occupied one of the mid-level floors in the Shinra tower, sharing two to a cramped suite. Evans's upright cherry wood piano still sat against the wall across from their squat little dining table, though the humidity of the Midgar summer had caused a few notes to go horribly flat in the time they'd been gone. Evans had tried to teach him for a while before giving Cloud up as a lost cause, incapable of relaxing his hands over the keys. He'd lasted longer than the instructor in Nibelheim, anyway.

There were a couple of cardboard boxes big enough to fit a man lying in the centre of their apartment. Cloud thought Evans's parents lived somewhere out near Junon. He'd have to check after he finished packing the stuff. Lazard had called him up to his office yesterday and made small talk while Cloud sipped at weak coffee. Then he'd told him that he'd get the apartment to himself for a while. They didn't need the space.

In Nibelheim, Cloud and the other kids had taken turns driving the rusted old truck that was wide enough to cover the whole mountain path down the road to the only general store for miles. They'd inched along, leaning on the tinny horn to give anyone walking on the road enough time to slide down into the wildflower fields alongside the raised dirt path. Evans had laughed until he pissed his pants, and then he'd put Cloud on a bike and taught him to make her purr under his hands.

Cloud looked up at Evans's face again before leaning over to press his forehead against his tangled fingers.

The door clicked behind him, and it swung open noiselessly. Cloud listened to the tap of boots over tile until they stopped somewhere to his right. He tilted his head up, and he blinked.

The neat row of medals pinned to Cloud's chest clinked when he sat up, and Robertsson's eyes dropped to the glittering bits of metal for a moment. The side of his mouth twisted up, and he nodded at Cloud.

"Strife."

"Want the chair?" Cloud said.

"No."

"It's uncomfortable as all shit."

Robertsson snorted softly. "Don't fuck up your ass before the parade today. You've gotta look good for the press."

Cloud clicked his tongue against the top of his mouth. "Noted," he said, scowling at his shiny boots.

"Hn." Robertsson made another almost smile, and he backed up a step to lean one of his shoulders against the wall.

Cloud turned back to the rows of caskets, listening to the hum of the lights. It sounded louder for some reason.

He hadn't seen Robertsson since Wutai. The Second had been with the other unit, one of the ones that came back alive. He'd seen the man briefly, passing by on a stretcher with blood trickling out of his ears and staring through the sky with unfocussed eyes, but Cloud had been given a thick, short Third with a hole through his chest by the medics. He'd pressed hard down on the wad of gauze, watching the fabric soak through and the man's eyes glaze. The gauze had squished under his hands, blood seeping through the gaps between his fingers, congealing into fuzzy clumps that clung to his palms after the medics had sent him off to carry more stretchers.

"You in the parade today, right?"

"No," Robertsson drawled, "I dress up in this zebrafish suit for shits and giggles."

Cloud made sure the Second was looking before he rolled his eyes.

There was a lot of lighting for such a small room. His shadows fanned out at his feet, quickly washing out and fading to invisible white on white. "I don't see why they're not making more of a fuss over the main unit," he said.

Robertsson grunted, folding his arms over his chest. "The General did everything. We got separated before the rest of us got ambushed by a bunch of deserters in Wutai combats mixed in with a Wutai heavy squad." He made a noise halfway between disgruntled and admiration. "Then the General came back and saved our asses." He paused. "The ones who had asses to save, still."

"The General did?" Cloud remembered the distant stare.

"He was out for the entire trip back after. Didn't they put you on duty on the officers' deck?"

"Sounded like a monumental waste of time at that point." He'd stood with his back to the wall beside Sephiroth's silent door for both of his six hours on shift and watched a rip in the carpet unravel under the feet of old men with shuttered eyes as they walked by.

"Lots of talk about traitors these days. The higher ups were probably antsy about protecting their investment. And you're pretty fucking set as the poster boy for company loyalty."

"Thanks," Cloud said drily.

Robertsson was quiet for a while, his eyes fixed on Evans's casket. Then he sighed, and the pinched look on his face smoothed out, along with the deep lines over his patchy eyebrows. "You send the best to guard a hero," he said, low but distinct.

Cloud was still watching Robertsson when the door thumped backward into its rubber stop and bounced.

"What are you doing here?" Kunsel stopped in the doorway, but he was looking at Robertsson.

Robertsson sneered. "Next time you think you can tell me where to be, lemme know beforehand, so I can tell you to shove it up your ass and save you the trouble."

"Next time you think you can pawn off the shit floor on my squad during our training rotation—"

"Oi," Cloud interrupted. "Save the bedroom talk for later."

Kunsel's mouth twisted under his helmet, but he shrugged.

"You're not in ceremony dress," Cloud said, swivelling around on the stool, slouching and gripping the edge.

"Yeah," Kunsel said. "Just got back from a mission in the Mines. Couple of workers were complaining about an ark dragon infestation. I'm staying on base during this one."

"Bastard."

Kunsel chuckled shortly. He stepped into the room, slowing to a stop in front of the rows of boxes. He rested a hand on the varnished ridge edging around Evans, and Cloud saw the jump of tendons in his arm when his hand clenched.

"There's flowers in here," he said.

"Yeah."

"He'd whine bad about it."

Cloud dropped his neck back, squinting at the bright panels set into the ceiling. "Yeah."

He saw Kunsel turn around in the corner of his vision. "What about Travers?"

"You didn't hear?"

"The brass has been pretty closed mouthed about the whole thing." Kunsel pulled his shoulders in, his eyes flitting over the open caskets. He took a step toward the wreath leaning against the wall and touched the fat buds woven into it. Their heads bobbed under his fingers. "The guys who came back are saying that it was pretty bad, but most of the rumours are about the Fort Tamblin side of things."

Cloud gnawed on a split in his lip. "A good quarter of the bodies were never recovered. Just gone. Either they're prisoners of the military faction that's active outside of Godo's control and better off dead after a week, or..." He shrugged. "Lazard said the guys who were killed on the spot were the lucky ones."

Kunsel stuck his hands in his pockets. He nodded, but he didn't say anything.

"They're putting his name on the monument, though," Cloud said.

"Right. Good." Kunsel shot a quick look at Robertsson's motionless stance, and then he sighed. "Have you been here all this time?"

Cloud ignored the question, tipping his chin towards one of the caskets in the back row. "That's Janes," he said. "We ran a recon mission together and nearly got our dicks chewed off roasting a shit ton of weed things in the mountains in Wutai."

"Cloud."

"It sounds pretty fucked up, doesn't it?" He pulled up the side of his mouth, and he scoffed. "Dying on one mission after busting your balls to survive another one."

Kunsel kicked one of the legs of Cloud's stool, and it jolted and screeched a couple of inches over the floor.

Robertsson snorted.

The chair had spun a little as it moved, and Cloud had ended up half-facing the wall. He tilted his head over his shoulder without bothering to turn in the seat.

Kunsel scowled down at Cloud. "Lazard sent me to find you since you left your PHS in the training room again. He wants you to lead the drills," he said, sharply.

Cloud looked at the helmet's beak for a moment. He drummed his fingers against his hand. "Drills," he said flatly. "You mean the flashy footwork and gun waving they do during the parade? Keeps the kids and the tits screaming?"

"Yes," Kunsel said.

"Angeal's work." He almost choked on the name.

"Yes."

"Fuck that." Like someone had reached into his jaw and was trying to yank all the gory bits out through his mouth.

Kunsel growled in the back of his throat, but he didn't sound surprised. "Cloud, you're the only one who can do it. You've always walked the drills with Angeal, and after what happened in the war, the Thirds practically worship you. I swear they'd rather plough their asses with their rifle butts than fuck up in front of you."

Cloud narrowed his eyes. His hands slid down to grasp the edge of the stool between his legs, the stretch raising pleats of fabric along the seam. His nails were still tapping against the polished wood of his seat, the clops of noise doing nothing to drown out the empty refrigerator hum of the room. "What?" he said, carefully.

"Think about it." Kunsel jabbed a couple of knuckles in the hollow of his shoulder, and the ornaments dangling off of him jangled. "You razed Fort Tamblin to the ground. Singlehandedly. You didn't set the explosive units, but you went in alone, took out their commander, destroyed their anti-Soldier units, and you  _came back_. Lazard's been dropping hints about promoting you since before he got back. Everyone's talking about it." Kunsel's voice lowered, grinding like gravel. "You'd know this if you bothered paying any attention to the living."

There was a banner hanging on the wall behind Cloud, inscribed with the word "Remembrance" in ShinRa's colours. The bright red of the text slashed across it, and Cloud had made sure to sit with it at his back. He wasn't sure about a lot of things. Why the Firsts had vanished, why  _he_  was sitting on his starched ass in this room when everyone else was in a box, why Kunsel wouldn't leave him the  _fuck_  alone; but he knew he couldn't look at ShinRa's logo right now, not when they were trying to get him to do Angeal's work, to  _replace_  Angeal like it didn't even  _matter_. The dowel weighing the bottom edge of the fabric down was digging into his ribs, and he nudged the stool further away from the wall. It scraped over the tile with a noise like a couple of banshees mating. He shook his head, and he said, "That's complete horseshit. I did  _jack_. I was just supposed to distract them while Angeal bombed the fort. It was dumbfuck luck that I ran into the commander."

"You say that like luck's a crime." Kunsel shrugged.

"I killed the man _in front of his wife._ "

Artificial light reflected off of Kunsel's helmet. When he slanted his head, the dome cast muddy shadows under the shield that made the shell black and obscured his face. There was some kind of protective coating over it that gave it an oily sheen, a bloated iridescent bubble. Cloud had asked the Second once why he constantly wore the helmet. Kunsel had laughed, and he'd said something that had left a vaguely satisfied feeling in Cloud's mouth until he'd tried to remember what Kunsel said and came up blank.

Cloud leaned back, and he dropped his head against the wall behind him so he couldn't see Kunsel, something resentful simmering inside of him.

The helmet lifted and turned to him. "I thought you wanted to be a hero."

Pain shot up his arm and into his chest, like someone had grabbed all the nerves and squeezed. Cloud winced, and he brought his other hand up to scrub at his boiling eyeballs. For a second, he envisioned them popping open like water balloons and gushing chunky gook down his cheeks. The image made him snicker.

Air whistled in his nostrils when he pressed his mouth shut, and he pulled up a shoulder. "What kind of a hero can't save anyone?"

Kunsel snarled, and his hands clenched like he was thinking of putting his fist through something. "God-fucking-dammit, Cloud. Would you pull your head out of your ass?"

"Strife." Robertsson's voice was quiet. He tilted his head from where he slouched, scar-twisted eye hard and fixed, and he waited until Cloud glowered at him. "There's no one else," he said.

After a moment, Cloud looked down at where his knuckles were white against the dark grain of the stool. He hissed a breath through gritted teeth.

He felt Kunsel's stare, and then the Second sighed. "Are you going to be alright?" he said.

There was a hollow in his chest, cavernous and echoing with the weak treble of his pulse. His vision juddered, tunnelling like the light was coming from a distance, and Cloud was blindsided by the rage that swelled in his gut. Anger at Kunsel for nagging, anger at his eyes for not cooperating. He squeezed them shut, smothering the dizziness.

Cloud tried to smile, but the muscles in his cheek stiffened and pulled it lopsided. Probably looked like shit. He gave up.

"Ask me again later," he said.

* * *

He wakes up alone.

He doesn't remember being alone. The quiet and the damp settle against his skin, hot and cold playing with his nerves. It feels like a blister, his skin. Tight and shiny, stretched out over fluids that slosh around inside him when he moves. It's familiar. He used to try to slam his hands against the tank, when he could still get angry, and the green around him would slosh like that.

He tips onto his side, the mattress sinking reproachfully under him, and he taps around with his feet until they touch the ground. It's wood, varnished. Sticky under his bare feet.

Slosh slosh.

He stands.

His head doesn't hurt this time. Just sloshes. He touches his neck to see if it's still attached.

There's something moving in the corner of his vision, little jerks and jumps.

The grainy green in his eyes swims around like little darting motes, dancing around the shapes in the room. He tries to follow one that corkscrews around and around, but it slides further and further out of his line of sight as his eyes move, and they start to burn and thump. He blinks.

His feet scrape over the floorboards when he moves, and stinging pinpricks nip at his legs.

There's a mirror. He recognizes it, glass smoothed over yellowed metallic backing. He reaches out with his hand as he approaches it, and his fingertips bend backward when they stop against the glass. He pushes.

The pain registers dully, like there's cotton stuffing him, muffling his touch.

He wonders how well sloshing fluids conduct sensation.

It's a mirror. He recognizes it because the cold room had been lined with them, reflections glaring down at the flat metal table sitting in the centre of the floor.

There's only one mirror. His fingers are sliding, smudging it.

He looks at the face watching him. He frowns, his mouth turning slowly down as the fluff-stuffed signals creep up his spinal cord.

The eyes are familiar, rimmed with blue, dark blue in the decrepit light that seeps into the room. The pupils are wide, tufts of livid green rebounding off the edges of the black like aborted attempts at escape.

His fingers drag down the glass, tracing the lines of the nose that's too thin and the chin that's too sharp. They're wrong.

Greasy yellow hair droops onto the forehead, bobbing when his head moves sharply like on springboards.

Wrong.

The face looks back at him, wrong mouth creaking open in the wrong shape, wrong cheeks hollowing as the voice rasps in the wrong throat.

He squeezes his eyes closed against the face that isn't his, and the thunder of glass shattering claws past the muffled lather coating the inside of his skin.

Glitter speckles the red of his fist, and hot prickles slip down his knuckles, contouring his wrist and sliding down his arm. They tap as they hit the wood under his feet, thudding like mallets against his eardrums and setting them shaking in billowing waves.

Dimly, he hears the thumps of footsteps outside the door.

Screwed up sheets, mottled green from mako sweat, hang off the bed. They crumple under his tread, and then air is rushing past his ears as he falls.

He splashes.

* * *

The joints in Cloud's neck twitched at an overly enthusiastic slam of cymbals.

The band was marching right behind the Soldiers, horns blaring loud enough to be heard over the solid wall of sound coming from the people lining the sides of the street. Balloons of various colours rose over their heads, whipping back and forth under the biting wind that drove cold slivers under his nails.

When a cluster spun up and tumbled into the sky, tangled string fluttering from it like streamers, he followed it with his eyes. It dotted the grey clouds with bright specks of colour.

The enormous bass drum thumped, sending tremors buzzing through his shoulders. It beat steadily, running an uncomfortable heat through his chest when it overpowered the sound of his pulse, the rhythms out of sync. He ground his teeth together, snapping his arm up. The ceremonial sabre that Heidegger had handed him managed a weak gleam under the muted sky. He tucked his elbow in tight again, and he heard the echoing clack of two dozen rifles being shouldered simultaneously behind him.

The drum thumped again, and he moved into the next form, vibrations rising up from his soles.

Winter in Midgar sent serrated gales of pressure scathing over his skin. It was almost worse than the bone-deep chill of Nibelheim freeze. It didn't snow in Midgar, not like the dead white banks that amassed alongside the narrow roads back home. It tried, wispy flurries drifting out of the sky, but the heat of several million living people and gushing exhaust pipes quickly turned it to runny sleet that froze overnight and coated everything with a thin sheet of ice. Street lights started snapping after the first couple of falls, and Cloud remembered the permanent scowl on the Director of Urban Planning's face.

In Nibelheim, fat clumps of snow twirled in the sky, thick cover and thick clouds stealing away the sound. Isolated pockets of warmth huddled until spring, muffled in silence. His mother sang a lot more during the winter.

Boots stamped against the asphalt in near perfect time, two steps to each accompanying pound of the drum.

Cloud ran his eyes over the faces crowding the street. MPs lined the route at intervals, spines stiff and straight. A little boy with bright red hair sat on the shoulders of his father, and he raised both of his mitten-swathed hands into the air and waved furiously. Cloud met the kid's eyes and added an extra spinning flourish of the sword before clicking along into the next form. He might get chewed out for it later, but for now, the kid's shrieking laughter followed him as the procession moved.

He flexed his wrist again, concentrating on keeping the grimace off his face. The ceremonial sabre had glittery bits all over the hilt. The gilded scabbard was buckled to his belt, the unfamiliar shape slapping against his leg as he marched. The thing was disgustingly light, the flimsy blade nearly bowing at his movements. The Soldier insignia was stamped into the base, and the words "Honour and Valour" were etched along the dull edge. The heavy words didn't lend any added weight to the weapon. It sparkled at him again, and he wondered who had thought that it was representative of Soldier. A big bat with nails in it would have been preferable.

The parade snaked around a turn in an intersection barricaded with virulent yellow stripes, and the tail end swung into Cloud's line of sight for a minute. Over the tuba player's crimson face and brassy bell, Cloud caught a glimpse of the fluted hood of the state car. Decked with wreaths and its top folded down, it looked more like a fat, stagnant carriage, and he saw Heidegger beaming as he balanced in the seat, waving both arms over his head. Strips of medals swayed on his sash, slowly tangling as they tipped on and off his paunch. The Vice President sat across from him, leaning his chin on a palm as he raised his other hand to the spectators.

Cloud had been on the receiving end of Heidegger's grin on several occasions. It had been during performance reviews, with Angeal watching with half a smile while Cloud got the heavy hand on his shoulder and the blank geniality of the truly uninterested.

Heidegger swayed as the car trundled over a sewer grate, and the convoy slipped out of sight.

A warehouse loomed on the side of the road, shadows showing under the fresh coat of grey paint that nearly covered the graffiti. A stray cat sat on the corner of the roof, an enormous ginger tom that flattened its scarred ears against its head as it yawned. Its eyes blinked shut at a blast of freezing air that made the sabre whine in Cloud's hand, and a couple of kids in the crowd shrieked.

The General's coat streamed like a pennant.

Cloud had heard that the General drove like an asshole and would kick Thirds off of missions for being irritating, but he'd never seen Sephiroth ride the fancy car during parades. Not that Heidegger and Rufus Shinra would have made for pleasant company. The General always walked at the head, his sheathed sword held at his side, setting the standard pace as people waved and gestured at his back.

The wind ripped at Sephiroth's hair, and the banner bearers a few steps behind him rocked and leaned as the fabric caught and billowed.

The flap of cloth snapped over the thump of the bass, and the wind funnelling into his ears muffled sound into a fuzzy mess of noise. The cat probably yowled before it streaked across the street, an orange blur that darted past rows of boots tipped with dust over careful shine.

Cloud's hand clenched around the too-light weapon, and he looked upwards to the roof of the warehouse, where a man in a ratty shirt that hang to his knees opened his mouth in his rage-twisted face to shout words that could not be heard. He flung his fist into the air, his head jerking wildly around and focussing on the state car. He raised his other hand, and the black of the pistol he clutched sucked at the meager light.

The band pounded along in its heartbeat thud.

There was a busker up the street, perched on the corner of the sidewalk and juggling a ring of brightly coloured balls. His hands shifted, swinging the trajectory of the balls into a double loop, and a girl's shrill laughter crested for a second before sinking back into the roar of noise.

The gunman jolted, a foot twisting as he sagged and fell.

The back of the dark suit straightened, creases falling out of the fabric as the wind snatched at it, and the Turk raised a PHS to his mouth.

The woodwinds launched through a short, trilling run, and Cloud looked forward, where the banner bearers shot confused frowns to their sides as their steps slowed and the banners folded. The procession paused, and the band stuttered briefly, a long dominant chord grinding with beats of dissonance and hanging in the air.

Past the banners, Cloud saw Sephiroth turned in profile, a gleam of steel under his gloved hand, where it clasped the mouth of the Masamune's scabbard. He shifted, and mako green eyes met Cloud's.

A tap of his thumb, and the sword slid sharply into its sheath, a moment before Sephiroth pivoted. The banner bearers snapped into step, their ragged lines quickly smoothing like the echo of a wave. Cloud stepped forward, sabre raised and holding form until the band moved, falling into the resolution.

He marched, the sound of the bass a fluttering pulse in his throat.

Thump. Step. Thump.

The spectators laughed.

* * *

The propeller engine roared at his back, and its heat seeped through the metal siding and thin cushion to sink into his skin. His muscles made little jerky, clawing twitches as they fought to relax and protested in his shoulders. Cloud sighed, tipping his head back to lean it against the airship's curved wall, but the vibrations lifted his skull up and bumped it back down against the wall incessantly in dull clacks, and he planted his palms on the bench to lever himself up again.

He poked at the back of his teeth with his tongue, feeling them buzz. The sensation brought to mind tiny bubbles squeezing and popping against the roof of his mouth.

The parade had ended at Shinra's private air base, hemmed in by tall gates studded with iron spikes on all sides.

Heidegger had begun bellowing before the state car had crept to a halt, and MPs scrambled to collect in formation. Then he'd spotted Cloud, and he'd begun stalking toward the Soldiers, his wide face black with thunder. Heidegger'd barely gotten within earshot before the General's voice had barked "Strife! Stand for report!" from behind Cloud, and Heidegger had stopped, scowled, and veered off when Lazard had cut smoothly into his path.

Cloud had stood at ramrod attention while Lazard's mouth made a little twitch, and he'd said, "This is me dressing you down, Soldier. Act contrite."

Cloud looked down at his hands, the joint groaning as he clenched and released his fist. He'd finally handed off the gilt sabre after the ceremony, but as worthless as it was, it'd been better than nothing. His bare back prickled at him, too light and too warm, and he leaned over, pressing his forearms against his knees. He sucked in a breath through slotted teeth, saliva running into the sides of his cheeks as the slow churn of his stomach rolled when the airship hit a patch of turbulence and shuddered.

"Strife? You okay?"

The bench creaked under new weight.

Cloud tipped his head. Jordon smiled thinly back at him, his helmet sitting in his lap and his ashy blond hair limp with sweat.

"Airsick?"

Cloud grimaced, and he made a sound halfway between a grunt and a moan.

"Need anything?"

Cloud flapped his fingers. "Quit chicken-shitting. I'm fine. Just don't be surprised if I decide to jump off and take my chances with the ground not killing me before I dent it."

Jordon snickered, and he leaned back, lacing his hands over his helmet and looking up at the bolted ceiling. "The General did a good speech," he said, after a while.

"Yeah?" Cloud said.

The caskets had already been lined up in neat rows, suspended over freshly hollowed earth, when they'd gotten there. There was no room in Midgar, but the company owned more land than Cloud had been able to imagine before leaving home. The airship had taken them west, to the other side of the mountains that hid the Mythril Mines. On land cut flat and seeded with manicured grass, flat blocks dotted the ground, small plaques set into the weathered stone. There weren't a lot of them. More open holes than closed. Cloud had never been to the Soldiers' cemetery before. A grey slab veined with dull pink and black crystal stood at the base of the mountain. The new names were already on it.

Cloud had stood still, cold digging into his fingers and his clothes as the wind gusted and scattered the pine needles that had been dropped to the ground, rolling them with little rattling noises.

There had been speeches, he was vaguely aware. And all he'd been able to focus on was the fact that Angeal would normally be standing up there. Maybe with Lazard. Maybe with Sephiroth. But Angeal  _left_.

Rufus had used the word "honour" three times in one breath, and Cloud had stopped listening, if only to stop thinking about the lump of molten metal heat building up in his throat because of that word. He'd stared at the white slabs piled on the side, near a gleaming iron fence, and he'd wondered if they'd been made with the plaques embedded in them, and the crew placing them over the graves would be left with a macabre game of matching the mound to the name. They'd probably been piled in a predetermined order, and if someone got mixed up and put into the wrong hole in the ground, he'd end up labelled as someone else forever, or at least until the wind eroded all of the names away and it didn't matter anymore.

He hadn't heard what Sephiroth said, either, but he remembered the quiet, even sound of the man's voice.

"He really meant it. You could tell," Jordon said.

Cloud looked at the Third. "Yeah," he said, nodding.

He'd waited while the caskets were closed, and he'd watched as they were lowered into the ground, clattering and groaning with each turn of the crank. He'd stayed for a while, after Rufus had tossed a handful of dirt onto one of the caskets and been ushered off, flanked by tense Turks.

The box that held Evans's body creaked and settled, clods of dirt starting to cave inward and scatter over the smooth wood.

He'd heard of it before, in books and stuff, but the burial ritual wasn't practiced in Nibelheim, where the ground above a certain altitude was too frozen to dig into without some multi-ton machinery, and the ground that could be dug up was so scarce amongst the bedrock that the few people who could convince food plants to grow in it weren't able to give it up to stick dead bodies into it.

People in Nibelheim were cremated, as far back as anyone could remember. The blind old man who sat in the bench in front of the inn every day had said that there'd been a huge mausoleum where Shinra mansion was, but it had been lost along with most of the town when the top of Mt. Nibel had blown in a spray of hot ash over a century ago. The new urns were kept in an official looking room with walls covered with threadbare velvet in the Mayor's cellar, now.

Some of the kids had dared Cloud to go in at night once, and the Mayor's daughter had scared the shit out of him when she'd heard, and decided to pop up amongst the sombre-looking urns and scold him.

One of the workers, a huge civilian with a beard that covered half his face and a shovel the size of half his torso, had hesitated when he'd reached Evans's grave, and he'd glanced over to Cloud.

"Wanna throw something in, lad? Before I cover it," he'd said, his voice a rumble under the howl of the wind.

Cloud remembered staring up at the man. "Throw what in?"

The man had shrugged. "Something with sent'mental value for your friend here? I dunno. I figured you were waiting to say goodbye."

Cloud had ended up pulling off one of the silver cuff-links on his dress uniform, and the civilian had looked at it strangely.

"That symbolic, or something?"

"No, but I'll remember him by it, anyway."

The old man had shrugged again, and he hadn't said anything else when he stuck the shovel into the mound of dirt at the side of the grave. Cloud had watched, and the gleam of metal vanished quickly under black soil.

The man grunted while he worked, and as shovelfuls of dirt thumped onto hollow wood, he'd cleared his throat. He hadn't looked back at Cloud, but he'd said, a bit awkwardly, "You know, boy, it helps to have a good cry. Even grown men twice your size do it."

Cloud hadn't known what to say to that one. A blast of wind had sent needles and clumps of topsoil clattering over the clean lawn as he watched the old man's dirt-smeared shirt flap while he shovelled.

That had been about when the clouds ripped open and slurry mixed in with hail splattered and hammered at the stones. The civilian had cussed loudly, and he'd bellowed to the other workers to get the graves stamped down before freezing water soaked through the loose soil and rotted the caskets away. Cloud had flinched at the sting of the ice pellets hitting his shoulders, but it was already lightening as the wind died. He'd looked up, squinting his eyes at the pale grey of the sky, and he'd watched the fat, sticky clusters of white snow spiral gently downwards.

A couple hit the back of his hand, and he saw the rippled edges of snowflakes stuck to each other for a second before they collapsed inward and melted into a bulbous droplet and slid off his wrist.

It had been strange, the way he couldn't really feel it against the surface of his skin. He'd stared down at it, a thin strip of numb crossing more numb. The empty splats of dirt hitting wood were becoming fainter, sharper. Peals of a bell tolling. Cloud had stood still, counting the rings as they folded themselves around him.

Someone had thumped him on the back of his head then, and he'd flinched. He'd turned to see a Turk smiling at him, pulling back the half-shut umbrella. "Come on, Soldier boy," she'd said, tilting her chin to where the airship stood waiting, propeller blades beginning a slow spin. "Don't get left behind."

She hadn't waited for an answer.

"Why'd you hang around for so long after the ceremony?"

Cloud blinked, pulling his eyes away from the whips of white whirling past the small porthole over his head. "Huh?"

"You were late coming on board. Almost got left behind," Jordon said, patting the fleshy part of his hand over his helmet absently.

Cloud thought about the old man for a moment, and then he shook his head and hummed in his throat. "Just curious, I guess. I've never seen anyone get buried before. I didn't know you've got special equipment for it."

Jordon raised his eyebrows. "What, never?"

Cloud shrugged. "We cremate people back home."

"Oh."

Cloud leaned back to look out the fogged glass again. He snorted softly. "My mother always thought that was boring. She always said when she died, she wanted to be put onto a huge ass pyre on a raft and burn her fucking way out of there on the river."

"No offense, but that's fucked up."

Cloud snorted again. "She's always been like that." Something glittered in this corner of his eye, and he slanted his head. He frowned. "You've got a sparrow or some shit in your ear."

Jordon scowled at him. "Fuck off, it's an eagle, you douchebag." He paused, glancing around. "I mean, you douchebag, sir."

Cloud rolled his eyes, and the Third seemed to relax. He waved a hand. "Lots of Soldiers get their ears pierced. It's not against regulations if it's too small to get grabbed, and we can't get tattoos, you know. The mako burns the ink right out."

"Really?"

Jordon looked at him for a minute. "I can give you the address of the guy I went to. He does work for Soldiers all the time, and he's pretty damn good at it. You'd probably look good with a stud."

"Oh." Cloud looked at the little bird again. "Thanks."

"No, it's—" Jordon cut off in mid-flap, and he clenched his hand into a fist as he dropped it to his lap. His face twisted, and he looked down at his tense hand. "Evans died saving me."

The airship droned through the snow, and the vibrations rose through the floor and up through Cloud's boots. "Oh," he said again.

* * *

Cloud thumbed the nub sitting against his left ear, and it gave a dull twinge of protest. It had taken a bit of time to first find a smith to melt down the other silver cufflink and shape it into a pointed stud, and the man had grumbled about fancy-ass Soldiers even after Cloud had told him to keep all the excess silver on top of payment. It had turned out well, at least.

Cloud dropped his hand, slapping it down onto the rail with a tinny clang. He rotated his shoulders, arching to stretch out his back with a grimace.

Cold knifed into his skin, the wind scraping its claws over his cheeks, and he inhaled deeply because the speed of the moving air created a little gap of low pressure in front of his body where it was a bit harder to breathe. The Shinra building had been designed to sway a little with the wind—less brittle that way, Kunsel had tried to explain—and he thought he could hear it groan under his feet. It was something he did, whenever every-fucking-thing he was supposed to be able to deal with coated the inside of his mouth with bile and was trying its hardest to suffocate him. He found somewhere high. And...

Angeal had never found him up here, not since Cloud had discovered the dingy little door at the top of the maintenance staircase more than two years ago. There was no lingering trace of the First up here, not like—

Midgar stretched in front of him, in that quiet place when the people who worked the night were just falling asleep in whatever beds they'd found themselves in, and the people who worked the day hadn't gotten their first humanizing cup of coffee yet.

The Soldiers had been on leave for the rest of the day after the parade and funeral. Cloud had tossed for a few hours around in his bed that felt like it sank too much under his spine and smelled like whatever sharp, cheap soap he was buying these days before giving up. His key card didn't give him access to some of the higher floors, but it did let him up onto the roof.

Some security lapse, probably, but after the stale air getting pumped out of the heater set into his wall, he wasn't complaining.

Not that the air was much better outside. Glass and metal, dull in the grey of pre-dawn, stood like shorter, silent sentinels, flanking the Shinra building. He could see the edge of the plate from here, a blocky fence fringing its circumference except for where a few construction rigs sat silently beside the unfinished, gnawed-looking boundary of sector eight.

There was a hoot, mako-tinted steam spewing from the smokestack on top of the monorail that ran between the plate and below on an automated schedule. He could hear the clacking die away as the engine pulled away from the station and started its spiralling descent.

Cloud swung around at the scrape of the door opening behind him, and Robertsson stopped in the open doorway, a hand on the knob and a decently surprised look on his face. Then he sniffed, and he slunk forward to lean his elbows on the rail beside Cloud.

"Couldn't sleep either?" Cloud said.

Robertsson clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth like he was irritated. "Sound's different. I hear trucks go past outside and the whole fucking building seems to shake under me. None of those loud chirpy things, either."

"What, birds? We've got them."

"I don't mean those turds on wings. Pigeons, or whatever. They don't chirp. We didn't get a lot of those under the plate, anyway. Probably knew we'd eat them."

Cloud hung his head further over the guardrail. A couple of MPs passed each other, little black and blue specks on the ground, nodding in recognition as they continued their patrols.

"You saw that assassin on the parade route, yeah?" Cloud said, tracking one of the MPs with his eyes.

"Yeah."

The MP slowed as he rounded the corner of the building, a hand darting down to the seat of his pants and yanking as if to unstick a wedgie. Cloud watched until the man was out of his line of sight. "Wonder who he was working for."

Robertsson made an impatient croaking sound in his throat. "Take your pick. Wutai remnant, local nutjob... I heard that there's a big terrorist group that the Turks are keeping hushed up."

Cloud's mouth twitched. "How'd you hear about it, then?"

Robertsson screwed up his face like he'd smelled something foul. "From that buddy of yours that always knows this shit somehow."

"Kunsel's a good friend," Cloud said.

Robertsson didn't say anything for a while, and then he shrugged a shoulder. "I know."

Cloud stared down at the motionless street below. The streetlight was flickering, strobing the ground just at the curb and making Cloud's eyes water. He heard Robertsson's fingers click as they tapped against the rail with no pattern that he could discern.

The Second tched. "Sound's fucking weird," Robertsson said.

Cloud hummed, half a sigh. "It's still home, though, right?"

Robertsson grunted.

Ahead, the sun was rising. Wutai had had some brilliantly coloured skies. The Midgar sun burned boiled-egg yellow, the smog on the horizon fuzzing its outline and making the atmosphere look like it'd caught fire. It radiated weakly, its heat like a damp touch on Cloud's skin, and watery shadows stretched out at the bases of the skyscrapers.

Cloud started laughing first. It was just jerks of his shoulders to start, his breath puffing out through his nose and pluming in the cold air, but then he nearly clocked himself on the chin on the rail, so he stood up, holding the bar with both hands and locking his elbows when he leaned over. His diaphragm shook painfully, and he sucked in quick greedy breaths around the irregular chortles that forced past his lips and disrupted his breathing. Robertsson's laughter sounded like hoarse barks beside him, half-muffled by his folded arms.

"Fuck, we're pathetic," Cloud forced out, fresh snorts breaking out through the words.

"Speak for yourself," Robertsson said, but there was a grin on his face as he huffed at the air.

Looking out over the lethargic city, they continued laughing.

* * *

TBC


	5. Air on Honour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Wait, this is Angeal's hometown, isn't it?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and settings are property of Square Enix. No profit is being sought from the writing of this fanfiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
> 
> And then Banora happened.
> 
> January 2015: This chapter is finally getting a bit of a polish due to awesome new beta!
> 
> Warnings: Pure Crisis Core spoilage.

**Part 5**. Air on honour

 

 

There was a sticky smell in the air, sweet and heavy. It made Cloud's nose itch, and he scrubbed at it roughly. It wasn't anything like how Midgar smelled. A few weeks had passed since the funeral, and winter was winding down back in the city. This just meant that instead of getting engine sludge and dust alternately plastered to the streets, it had been mixed together into a shoe-sucking slurry. Mideel had none of that. Mideel had grass. And trees. And other green shit that Cloud couldn't put names to.

Cloud hadn't actually been to the Mideel continent before. He'd vaguely known that it was somewhere far south enough that the seasons got flipped around and the people there acted like it wasn't confusing as all hell. But when orders popped, he was supposed to just get into the transport and go wherever ShinRa wanted him.

The man walking in front of him turned to eye him, and Cloud tensed. He didn't drop his hand until the man looked away.

He didn't work with Turks often. Soldiers, the officers, anyway, talked about them and their ruthless methods of going about their duties with faint hostility and contempt veiled in crusty professionalism. The rest of them treated General Affairs with open discomfort, as they did with any sort of power that couldn't be categorized as physical. In past missions, when a Turk had been sent along to do whatever the hell it was Turks did while Soldiers ran distraction, Angeal had done all the talking while Cloud had been expected to keep his mouth shut and follow orders, so fuck if he knew what he was supposed to say to the man leading them through the valley now.

He'd introduced himself as Tseng of the Turks, having seemingly forgotten that he'd hung up on Cloud abruptly after ordering him up to the Director's office for the mission debrief. Cloud watched him walk through the damp grass, the man ignoring the faint squeak of his wet, expensive shoes, and he wondered for a moment whether Turks get taught to act like mysterious  _dicks_ as part of their image training, or if it was just how Tseng worked.

A chattering wind draped clammy fingers over the back of Cloud's neck, and he hunched his shoulders up, shoving his fists into his pockets. Something jabbed into his knuckles, and he palmed a hand over the PHS sitting in the pouch. It was warm along one face, the one that had soaked up what body heat it had pressed against.

Cloud ran the pad of his thumb over it.

ShinRa had pushed out an over-the-air update a couple of nights ago, for the PHS system. He'd let it do whatever it wanted. Then, it had buzzed at him, and a short line of text had blinked up at him, prompting him to delete contacts no longer in the system.

He could still remember the way his throat had constricted, grey-black blurs tunnelling his vision. He'd sucked on ragged breaths against the pressure bearing down on his lungs and dropped the device on table before walking out.

The message had still been there the next morning, sputtering on its last dregs of battery power, and he'd rejected the prompt a second before the screen had blinked out.

Cloud tugged the PHS out of his pocket and flipped it open. Contacts was shortcut button two. The system provided default profile cards for company personnel, but they could be altered locally. Travers had nagged Cloud into replacing the blank, unsmiling ID badge photo with a picture of him grinning like a retard while framed in a way that let him pretend that he was using his forefinger and thumb to squish Scarlet's tits, caught in the background of the shot. He'd then sniffed at the possibility of getting a write up and declared that the picture was worth it.

Evans' was a photo of his bike. He'd always just snorted something about not being jealous every time Cloud had groused about being forced to look at the man's "baby" whenever he called.

The numbers under their names had been greyed out.

Angeal's contact card had stopped responding about a week after Cloud had gotten back to Midgar.  _Restricted_ , in red, popped up whenever he'd tried accessing it after that.

Cloud jerked his head up. He'd identified the source of the smell. It was the pale, drooping trees arching out over their heads on either side of the path, like they were determined to reach out for their compatriots growing opposite them. Their branches were studded with little white flowers, interspersed with the occasional limb heavy with small, hard-looking fruit.

Cloud would be the first to admit that he knew jack about horticulture beyond precisely when to pick the wild berries growing on thick bushes halfway up the Nibel mountains. It couldn't be done too soon or too late, since the fruit went from stomach-twisting sour to the stink of rot in the span of a couple of days. He did know, though, that fruit didn't tend to ripen in early spring. By the suffocating sweetness in the air, the things smelled overly ripe.

"Weird trees," he mumbled, mostly to himself.

He'd dropped behind. Tseng had probably pulled ahead again when Cloud had dug out his PHS. He hadn't been expecting Tseng to hear, and definitely not respond, not after the stilted silence, but the Turk paused to glance up overhead, and then he said, "They're Banora Whites."

"Huh?"

"Otherwise known as dumbapples."

Cloud nearly gave himself whiplash, twisting to look up and around. "Wait. What? You mean this is Banora Village? Angeal's hometown?"

"Precisely." Tseng had turned to him, his eyes narrowed. "Angeal and Genesis were childhood friends," he continued. "Didn't you read the mission file?"

Cloud glared. "Not with the way you rushed me to the heli-pad after debrief." He wasn't going to let himself get lectured by a damn Turk.

The wind still brushed by intermittently, a razor-edge whine in its voice.

"Lack of preparation is disastrous to a mission. You could be endangering the lives of those who rely on you for protection."

 _Fuck_.

It sounded like something Angeal would say. That was the part that pissed him off the most.

Cloud had opened his mouth, an acerbic "Like you?" sour on his tongue, but he snapped his jaw shut, took a slow breath, and he nodded. If Tseng was dissatisfied with the stiff acknowledgment, he didn't show it. Good. It was all the asshole was getting.

Cloud exhaled, and an almost imperceptible mist plumed in front of his mouth. The wind snatched it away. He tilted his head up. Only chopped up strips of sky were visible through the extended branches over Cloud's head. It was grey, heavy with the remnants of winter.

"All the more reason to have assigned more than one Soldier to this mission," he said finally.

Tseng was still watching him.

"You said there was an advance party sent ahead to investigate, didn't you? With more backup, we'd stand a greater chance of being able to protect them. Why am I the only Soldier here?"

"Sephiroth refused the orders," Tseng said, almost blandly, like it was all the explanation Cloud could want.

"And  _I'm_  supposed to be his replacement?"

"The fewer individuals who know about the circumstances of the Soldier desertion, the better."

They'd stopped, facing each other under the dumbapple canopy. Silvery leaves rattled briefly under a limp wind, weighed down by moisture and the scent of the fruit. Under Tseng's quiet stare, Cloud blinked slowly.

"I get it," he said. "You don't trust Soldier. You're hiding information because you think there are more traitors in Soldier."

There was nothing apologetic in Tseng's brief smile. The Turk hummed. "There have been doubts about Soldier's ties to the company since the loss of a majority of its forces."

"That's rich," Cloud snapped, "coming from you."

"No matter what our reputation, there has never been a question of the loyalty of the Turks," Tseng said immediately.

Cloud frowned.

The denial had been definite, but almost too quick.

Before he could ask, Tseng looked away. "In any case," he said, "Our objective isn't to protect the advance party."

There was a sudden snarl of wind, and there it was again. That corrosive feeling smouldering in his gut. It snapped.

"So what, we're just going to  _ignore_  them if they've run into trouble—"

"Playing hero isn't within the scope of your prescribed role, Strife."

Cloud felt his teeth clack shut. "And what the hell is my  _prescribed role_  in this  _shithole_ , huh?" he said, his voice short and low.

"Your role is whatever the company requires it to be." The response was whip-quick, but brick-heavy, the way it seemed to just hang in the air. Tseng tilted his head to regard Cloud. "Or did you forget that?"

The rattle of Cloud's breath was loud under the draped branches overhead. It might have been better if Tseng had even sounded angry.

Tseng was still eyeing him. "You were approved for this mission because your profile indicated that you were unlikely to let personal matters interfere with mission performance."

"So you think you  _know_ me based on—"

"But perhaps," Tseng continued steadily, "it hasn't been long enough since the war."

It felt like everything seized. His shoulders started to shudder under the strain. Slowly, at first, and then sharper, rapid thumps like something was stomping on his back and digging its heels through his ribs. "Don't—" Cloud rasped.

"Though you were commended for your actions in the war, the act of taking a life is nevertheless—"

"You are not  _fucking—_ " Cloud reached out, and Tseng stepped back abruptly.

Cloud's hand stopped, clenched, dropped. "Just stop it," he said. In some sort of asshole way, Tseng might have been trying to help. He let out a sharp breath, and he shook his head. "We're here for answers, right? There's a chance that Angeal might have come here?"

Then, his blade whistled as he yanked it from its sheath and twisted to avoid the sickle that had been coming at neck level behind him. "There's no way I'm staying behind," he snarled, leaning into a lunge. He'd angled it so that a smaller sword would have slipped under the ribs up toward the heart. In this case, bone crunched wetly.

Turning fully to face the attackers, Cloud backed up, nudging Tseng along with him as he shuffled into his stance. The blurs of rust colour resolved into three more men, opaque helmets pulled down over a hint of red hair. They danced, occasionally twirling a weapon in a hand as they leaned drunkenly.

"I saw these guys in Wutai," Cloud said. They were bouncing like puppets, not even sparing a glance for the shaking form of their fourth member, bleeding out onto the gravel path. "Weird-ass bastards," Cloud muttered, "they're like toy soldiers, hopping around like that." He hunched down lower, his sword held across his body defensively, and he raised his voice to talk over his shoulder. "Look, don't worry, I'll take care of—"

The blast of gunfire right by his head made Cloud reel away, clapping a palm to his ear and wincing at the ringing sound still echoing in his skull.

"What the  _fuck_ ," Cloud howled. The sound made him even more dizzy. " _Warn_  me before you do that!"

Tseng gave him an irritated look before he continued shooting.

It was easy to see why the Turk was having trouble. The weaving movements of the soldiers made it hard to predict where they would be half a moment later.

Then, Cloud was batting away a blade aimed at his gut. Closing his free hand on the soldier's wrist, he used a hip to knock the man off balance as he completed the turn and swung his sword down. The soldier crumpled, Cloud's weapon having sheared halfway through his collar.

This was  _stupid_ , expecting any sort of teamwork with someone he hadn't even seen fight before. Kicking away from the soldier, Cloud stepped back and shouted without looking around. "Oi! Cover me! And if you fucking hit me, I'll haunt you for the rest of your measly ShinRa life!"

If Tseng responded, it wasn't really loud enough for him to notice, but as Cloud charged, he thought he might have heard a faint snort.

* * *

 _Fuck_ , he hurt.

The thing in the middle of the clearing made an ominous whirring sound, and it danced a little bit on its spider legs. Its metallic exoskeleton gleamed dully in the pathetic half-light filtering down through the trees. On the bright side, even Tseng had looked surprised when the thing—it was a combat robot; had to be—had dropped out of the sky and hit the ground with a crash Cloud had only ever associated with building demolitions. After they'd dealt with the Genesis clones, the orchards had seemed eerily quiet as they headed for the residential areas. In retrospect, that probably should have tipped them off. They'd just started hitting the outlying buildings when the skin on the back of Cloud's neck had started crawling, about a second before metal had shrieked in the air and he'd had to haul the Turk off his feet while diving for cover.

His joints felt warped and bloated with gunk, his teeth ached like he'd tried to gnaw the robot to death, and it was sending out  _another_  one of its field pulses.

Black patches hovered in Cloud's vision as he hunched over, trying to keep his grip on the hilt of his sword with numb, dead sausage fingers. It kept slipping like it'd been dipped in rancid butter. Blinking hard and gulping for breath, he didn't see the robot this time when it thumped a metal-plated leg into his side and sent him slamming shoulder first into a tree. Swallowing a low moan, Cloud slid down the cracked bark, his unresponsive knees folding under him as he pitched over sideways. The tree was still shuddering behind him, showering his head with bits of twigs and dried leaves.

He was alone with the robot. When the thing had jumped them, Tseng had hared off after a couple of the red soldiers that'd made a break for it, barking at Cloud to "take care of it" and leaving him with the giant metal spider thing that shat fucking blasts of something that felt like it was cooking him from the inside out.

_"Spike, look out!"_

Shit shit  _shit_!

Cloud leaned against another tree, panting and feeling his legs shake under him. He'd somehow managed to scuttle back, away from the robot when it'd charged up and let loose another pulse attack. Out of range. Ha. Asshole spider.

It stepped back and forth, its limbs unfolding and tapping down again with the sharp grind of gears. It whirred again, angrily, scanning the ground surrounding it. It seemed to have lost track of Cloud. Probably had a limited range of perception.

_"Go up behind it and hit it some more!"_

Yeah, he'd tried that already, thanks.

Cloud squeezed his eyes shut, a growl buzzing in his throat. Great, now he was  _talking_  to the voices in his head. That probably ranked pretty high on the list of things sane people didn't do. It hadn't addressed him since Wutai, that damn voice. He'd thought it had been a hallucination brought on by thinner air and the way every fucking thing had been trying to take his head off over there.

There was a squeal of bearings, and Cloud backpedalled hurriedly as two of the spider's legs scythed down toward him, dropping out of a rear above him. It hit the tree, and the cacophony of splinters as the trunk bowed backward and snapped in half seemed to disorient the robot. Through the raggedly whipping branches, Cloud saw it fall back onto all of its legs, hopping as it returned to the clearing.

Cloud narrowed his eyes as he stared at the rampaging spider. It looked like it couldn't find him again, crouched in the shadows of a stand of trees. Okay. Fuck. Focus. He wasn't going to win a contest of strength or endurance. Every fibre of muscle felt like it had been flayed from his bones. His limbs tried to seize up with every movement, his stomach burned like there were hands clenched around it and squeezing, and the sharp taste of acid stung at the back of his throat. Even breathing hurt. He was pretty certain he had to be smarter than the machine, though, even if it was only by a hair. He studied it intently as it prepared another field attack. There had to be something he could use.

The field attack was probably some sort of electric pulse. Sure as hell felt like electrocution. The robot always paused right after using it, a shiver of some sort running up its metallic exoskeleton.

There. It'd happened again while Cloud watched. What kind of a stupid design flaw had the thing reacting to its own attack? But if the robot was weak to electricity, and its pulse attack wasn't incapacitating it with every blast...

Cloud glanced up at the sprawling branches over his head. Purple dumbapples were nestled against the wan bark, but they looked sturdy enough.

Shit, this was going to hurt if he was wrong.

Un-oiled joints squealed when Cloud plummeted out of the tree as the robot passed under it and his boots thudded down onto its bolt-studded carapace. Every bearing jerked, uncoordinated and reflexive, in response to every one of whatever the spider had instead of synapses firing at the same time. The machine's limbs folded under it, and it sagged to the ground.

It fired off several pulse attacks in quick succession, some sort of electrical equivalent of thrashing, and nothing but a faintly itchy tingle washed over Cloud's skin. He let out a long, loud breath.

He'd guessed right. There was a zone immediately around the robot that the pulse attack didn't reach.

Cloud looked around quickly, and he swore under his breath. He'd dropped his sword somewhere in the brush, when his nerveless fingers hadn't been able to hold on anymore. His strongest materia had been equipped on the weapon, his mastered Thundara included.

Then, as Cloud turned his head, a glimmer of green caught his eye. He pulled himself forward and squinted into the crack.

There was an active materia studded in the core of the robot's mechanical guts, flickering and flashing through its nest of wiring as it powered the spider's I/O-interface. The machine hummed under Clouds palms, the start of its attempt to recover its feet, and he reached out quickly, jamming his knuckles into the gap in the spider's shell. His fingertips barely brushed the smooth sphere, but the reaction was immediate. The robot tried to surge up onto its legs, the gap in its shell squeezed, crushing force clamping down onto Cloud's hand.

Shouting a garbled stream of invectives, Cloud clung on, and he crammed magical energy into the hidden materia.

The robot writhed, rocking side to side, each movement grinding the bones in Cloud's hand into a paste of congealed agony. A glow started, molten plasma seething under the spider's shell, bright enough to make Cloud see red through his screwed shut eyelids. He continued to charge the materia, and sharp spits of sparks started lancing into the air, along with arcs of static that jumped up off the robot's shell before earthing themselves further down the metal plate.

He'd been taught the theory behind overloading materia, but he'd never tried it before. Mostly because the theory had been accompanied with severe threats and warnings never to do it.

The resistance increased, an almost physical wall of pressure now. The magical potential across the shell of the little sphere was grating and grinding to a halt, increasing only by the barest increments and threatening to whip free with every passing moment. Cloud strained against it, driving in more and more magic.

Then, finally, it happened. A miniscule slip of mental sensation as something simply gave.

Yanking free, ignoring the fact that he was leaving behind several layers of skin off his knuckles, Cloud launched himself away from the robot.

The explosion bowled him over in midair and sent him rocketing into a clump of trees. Air punched out from his lungs, partly due to the impact, partly as a result of the shockwave that rocked the orchard. It could have been noise. Some sort of solid variant of it, still noise in the same way that diamond was still carbon.

When he dragged himself onto hands and knees, Cloud wasn't sure how long he'd lain at the base of the patch of trees. Nausea still pounded at his innards and liquefied brains were still sloshing inside his ears. Rocking to his feet somehow, Cloud peered around blearily.

There was a scorched patch in the centre of the clearing, and mangled black metal heaped over it.

He'd cut into his gums sometime during the fight, and blood seeped out onto his tongue. The metallic taste was flooding his mouth, creeping into every crack and hollow. It stung like a bitch, even though it was a small gash, minor compared to every other howl of pain clamouring for attention. When he spat, it was red.

That probably hadn't been a very good idea. It was a vague, dazed thought that flitted through his head. He was fan-fucking-tastically lucky that he hadn't been gutted by shrapnel. His hand felt like it was on fire. He glanced down at the vivid film of blood over his knuckles.

A second faint thought wondered at his chances of a do-over. Maybe there was another one of the things wandering around, and he'd be able to destroy it without more than half killing himself in the process.

 _"Could have gone better."_  The voice in his head agreed.

Shuffling forward to examine the remains of the spider, Cloud gave a muted grunt. "Yeah, well, fuck you, too."

"Pardon?" said Tseng's voice behind him.

"Uh." Shit. "Nothing." Cloud was standing over the bodies of two of the red soldiers. They'd gone down first, torsos ripped open with clumsy strikes when he'd realized that they'd been herding him into range of the guard spider's crushing blows. The other two had run. He didn't know exactly what had happened to those ones, but Tseng had come back. Alone. He toed a blood-crusted helmet, one that had rolled off when its bearer had hit the ground. Bright hair covered half of the soldier's face, but Cloud didn't need to see it to know what he looked like.

"More Genesis copies," he murmured.

In the corner of his eye, he saw Tseng's head twist toward him from where the Turk was sifting around the blackened hull of the robot. "You know about them, then."

Cloud shrugged. "Sephiroth told me about them."

Tseng's eyebrows rose just enough to notice. Probably the Turk's version of shock and horror. Then, as if he'd decided something one way or the other, Tseng drew himself to his feet and nodded brusquely toward to the demolished spider. "This machine is a piece of technology stolen from the company's Scientific Division. As for the copies, we've found that the deserters also have the ability to create clones of Genesis that mirror his strength and abilities to some extent."

Cloud's eyes widened. "They're  _cloning_  Genesis?"

"They do so by genetically altering pre-existing life forms. We've learned, however, that the transfer process is only successful when performed on mako-exposed monsters and Soldiers."

"Soldiers and monsters?" The implications dropped a brick of frost into the pit of Cloud's stomach. It dug icicle claws into his veins and burned his throat in a way that was worse than heat could manage.

Tseng ignored him. He had turned away to where a sprawling mansion was visible past the orchard. "Come on, we should move. If the copies have made it this far to the village, they may have taken the residents hostage. We'll need to secure any people that require rescue before the raid begins."

Cloud blinked. "Raid? What raid?"

"The President has authorized eradication of this village, along with Genesis and his accomplices based here, with WMDs."

"You're going to  _bomb_  the whole village?"

"The President agrees that it's the appropriate measure."

"But it's not—"

"Which is why," Tseng said sharply, turning to regard him, "you should move quickly to ensure no civilians are caught in the raid."

It barely registered when Tseng turned his back to Cloud again. He'd seen more than one bombing. In Wutai. More than the noise, more than the oppressive heat, it was the smell that came back the sharpest now, months later. The scent of  _everything_  burning. Sour, stink, sweet, churning together into a morass of stench that made his eyes sting with pins and needles stabs.

"—is Genesis' parents' home." Tseng was saying something. The sound filtered into Cloud's ears, garbled like he was underwater. "They owned the land the village stands on."

"Angeal said that the mayor's son was his best friend." His own voice was just a mumble.

"Yes." Tseng nodded. "They grew up together and were childhood friends."

Fuck, Angeal. What else hadn't he said?

"So that's why the General thought Angeal deserted right away. Because of Genesis."

Tseng hummed in affirmation.

Cloud shut his eyes. He'd thought that maybe if he'd known more, gotten a better idea of why Angeal had left, had left him behind, it would have gotten better. Like making sense of it would edge out the hurt chewing at his ribs.

Well, it damn well didn't.

"Hmm," Tseng said suddenly.

Cloud looked up. "What?"

"A fresh grave." The Turk pointed at a cluster of rocks heaped under a tree. He crouched down, examining the blank stones for a moment before glancing up at the sky. "Go find Angeal's house," Tseng said. "I'll check out the grave."

Cloud felt his mouth twist. It was better than dwelling on the mangled surge of tightness that hit his chest at the thought of Angeal's house. "Seriously? You're gonna—"

"Strife," Tseng said. "Go do your job."

Cloud eyed the man's fancy-suited back. Jackass.

Then he hurried away, so he wouldn't have to watch the Turk dig up the dead.

* * *

Banora village proper was barely more than a patch of cobbles surrounded by dull faced huts. There was firewood piled tidily against the sides of the houses, coated with a thin layer of grey dust. The buildings looked carefully kept, their cheap tile roofs patched over and over again. They were nearly identical in construction, nearly identical in faded colouring, and completely, fully silent.

Empty.

Here and there, miniature mako springs wisped an indistinct green haze into the air that could only really be seen by the way they distorted the shapes visible through them. Cloud passed his fingers through one again, watching the edges of his knuckles waver. It prickled, a gentle chill. He hadn't seen one since the huge spring up Nibel mountain. He hadn't been allowed near that one when he was a kid. The monsters got a lot more aggressive, the ones that lived near it.

Cloud jerked his head around. Movement.

A curtain swayed for a moment before it stilled.

"Hello?" Cloud shouted, jogging across the empty plaza to the house. He'd just reached the door, raising a fist to knock, when it swung open.

"Yes?" The woman was thin, dark hair faded to grey like the rest of the village. She peered up at him with blue eyes familiar in their shape, but disconcerting for their lack of glow. "Can I help you?"

"Uh," Cloud managed. He looked like her, Angeal.

The woman had been studying his face. Then, her gaze flicked up to his hair, and her mouth curved. "Come in," she said, stepping away from the door.

Cloud shuffled through the doorway after absently trying to scrape some of the shit off his boots. "Are you Angeal's mother?" he said.

"You're Cloud, aren't you?"

Cloud blinked. "How did you know that?"

The woman smiled as she folded a pale yellow shawl tighter around her shoulders. "My son wrote about you in his letters. Hair like a chocobo's crest. Face like a lost puppy."

"What?" Cloud said.

He must have sounded indignant, because Angeal's mother chuckled.

He shook his head. "Look, Ms Hewley—"

"Gillian."

"Sorry. Have you seen Genesis or any of his men? It's dangerous here."

Angeal's mo—Gillian was giving him a hard look. "Are you with Genesis?" she asked.

He shook his head again. "No. Not at all. I'm just trying to find Angeal."

"Has something happened to my son?"

Cloud saw it then. The Buster. Someone had leaned it carefully against the corner of the room. In the shadows, it caught more light than Cloud would have thought reached the corner, and the edge gleamed, a washed-out blue. He chewed on the inside of his lip for a moment, and then he said, "I don't know."

She watched him. Whatever she saw, she seemed satisfied, because she nodded. "Genesis came back some time ago, leading a group of men. They started killing villagers, and then, well." She waved a hand toward the empty square outside her closed door. "Everyone who could left."

"And Angeal?"

The lines around her eyes tightened suddenly. "He came back, too. But he's gone somewhere. Left his sword behind."

It was almost an involuntary movement, the way Cloud turned his head to the Buster Sword.

She sighed, a tired sound. "He wouldn't talk to me, but I know something's wrong."

"I'm sorry."

Gillian laughed. "What are you sorry for? You didn't make him leave."

"I..." He wasn't sure what he wanted to say there.

Gillian had moved to stand by the sword. She lifted her hand to rest her fingertips against the hilt. "This sword is all my son has left of his father. It's our family's pride."

"He never used it," Cloud mumbled.

"He'd never leave it behind, you know." She frowned, her other hand clenching in her shawl.

"Yeah." Cloud nodded.

He was still looking at the sword when he realized that she was talking to him. "What?"

"I said 'can I offer you some cookies?' I made them when I thought Angeal had come back, but he's gone somewhere again, and I'm not sure when he'll be back."

Cloud blinked. "Huh?"

"I made his favourite ones, but I'm sure he wouldn't mind if I gave them to you."

"Wait, you can't stay—"

"I can just make more when he comes back."

"Listen!" Shit. That had been loud. Cloud stopped, and tried again, biting back the impatience in his tone.  She sounded like she'd been worried for a long time, without anyone to talk to. "Sorry, but I meant it when I said it's dangerous here. You should really leave now. Maybe lay low for a while."

She gave him an indulgent look. "And where would I go?"

"Uh," Cloud paused. "Midgar? You'd like it. It's full of people."

But she was already shaking her head, a smile on her face. "Angeal has already tried to move me to Midgar. I told him then, and I'm telling you now, this is my home. Don't worry," she offered, misinterpreting his grimace. "Genesis won't hurt me."

"But you  _can't_  stay. ShinRa plans to destroy this village when they attack Genesis. I'm supposed to evacuate anyone still here."

Gillian's eyes widened. "But if my son's here..."

"Leave Angeal to me. I'll find him. But you have to—"

She'd pulled away when Cloud reached for her arm, and she stepped back, wrapping both hands around her waist tightly and shaking her head. "No," she said. "I'm not going anywhere without Angeal."

"But—"

"I'm not leaving by myself."

Cloud shoved his hands through his hair, and he let his shoulders sag in defeat. "Okay," he said. "Okay." He eyed the Buster Sword for a moment as it stood quietly in the gloom , and he turned to the door. "I'll be back for you after I find Angeal. Be ready to leave then." He tugged on the handle, and there was a groan of dusty hinges. "Please."

"Cloud," Gillian said softly.

He twisted around.

"When you find my son," she said, "can you tell him that I'm waiting here for him?"

She looked small, standing next to the Buster.

"Yeah." Cloud nodded, and he shut the door behind him.

Outside, he looked up at the grey sky. It wasn't overly bright, but there was something blinding in its uniformity. He let his eyes fall shut. The light still passed through his eyelids and made him wince.

"Angeal," he said, barely a whisper. "Where the fuck are you?"

* * *

Cloud had just pulled up his map, and the little flashing dot that indicated Tseng's position, for the second time when his PHS started buzzing again. He was close.

He scowled, loping over a bump of a hill, and he saw the Turk, pressed against a tree.

"The hell, Tseng, I said I was on my way just two seconds ago."

The Turk snapped his own PHS shut. The buzzing in Cloud's hand stopped.

"What, did you think I'd got lost?"

Tseng ignored his griping. "That grave belonged to Genesis' parents."

Cloud felt his hands slowly clench. "You don't think that Genesis..." Weird, that it was the woman with Angeal's eyes that he pictured.

"I doubt that anyone else would have done it," Tseng said. He nodded back toward the village. "What did you find?"

"Angeal and Genesis both came here. I found Angeal's house, but he wasn't there." Cloud leaned forward. "Tseng," he said urgently. "I've got to find Angeal. His mother's waiting for him."

"His mother?"

"Just give me some time. When I see Angeal, I'll try to beat some sense into him. I'll bring him back, him and Genesis. I've seen the Firsts get away with all kinds of shit, anyway. The President might be pleased enough to get them back that he'd forget the whole thing, just to get it over with. I just need you to stall the raid long enough for me to talk to them."

Tseng was regarding him with an expression he couldn't place. Finally, his mouth twitched. "I see why Sephiroth nominated you for this mission."

Cloud blinked. "The General did?"

The Turk turned back to the sprawl of a squat compound sitting at the base of the hill. It looked innocuous enough, edged with a cliff on one side, and the orchard on the other. "You might get your chance," he said, looking down at the building. "This is Genesis' base. They may both be here."

"So," Cloud said, "you want me to bust in?"

Tseng tilted his head. "While I have other modes of entry, they require a bit more... finesse. And we're short on time."

Cloud snorted. "What, all that, and no magic word?" He pulled his sword free, stepping forward. Tseng didn't respond. Not that he'd been expecting the man to.

* * *

Cloud squinted, blinking one eye rapidly. He'd gotten a thin gash along his hairline from one of the clones that had tried to ambush him and Tseng. It was still leaking, prickling his eye and making the entire side of his face itch as it dried. He swiped the side of his wrist over his forehead again. It probably smudged. Most of the blood on his arms wasn't his.

Following the clicking noises, he edged through a door.

Tseng was bent over a computer terminal, tapping away at the keyboard. A couple of other workstations were pushed up against the walls and heaped with paper. It looked like a study.

"Get anything good?" Cloud said.

"I'm trying to access any information there is on the production of the clones," Tseng said absently.

It sounded like a dismissal.

"Huh." Cloud wound around the desks, and he tried another door. It swung open to a wide room, tall windows segmenting the sunlight as it passed. Cloud's boots echoed on the hardwood floor, and the sound buzzed in his ears. In the rays of light scything through the windows, motes of dust were set ablaze, disturbed by his entry. The tank set into the wall was jarring, out of place, cold metal against warm wood. Inside, a figure floated. The glow of mako diluted the red of its hair and armour. It bobbed, the body itself motionless in its stasis, and a thin stream of bubbles escaped its mouth.

Cloud barely gave it a glance.

Because he wasn't alone in the room.

"Ripples form on the water's surface  
The wandering soul knows no rest."

From the way the voice resonated, Cloud figured the room had been built that way. For the acoustics.

"Fuck," he whispered.

Genesis lowered the book. "Hn," he said. "Noisy, aren't you?"

In the sluggish heat of the afternoon sun, Cloud's breaths sounded harsh, whistling in his mouth. There was the rustle of a glove against a page. The leather groaned. Thoughts scuttled through Cloud's head, barely registering before they were drowned by the next flood.

The First was alone. He didn't seem armed. He didn't seem worried, either, so maybe he... Shit. But Angeal— Cloud didn't know if the tightness in his throat was fear or hope. Maybe it was the same thing, really.

"Genesis." At the Turk's voice, Cloud turned to see Tseng enter the room. His hand rested openly on his gun.

The First's mouth curved, but he didn't respond.

"There were the remains of men we'd sent to perform an investigation in that grave by your house," Tseng said, undeterred.

"Oh?" Genesis said. Delicately, he flipped a page.

"The bodies were old. They had been dead before we received their report that all was clear in the village." Cloud couldn't tell if he was imagining the note of accusation in the Turk's voice.

"It was a simple enough task to persuade them to send false information. Mild threats sufficed." Genesis lifted a loose hand. "Of course, after that, they had served their purpose."

In situations like these, Cloud was supposed to let the Turk do the talking. They were the ones trained to negotiate, to talk circles, saying one thing and meaning something else entirely. He was supposed to be the heavy. The one standing behind Tseng with his mouth shut because otherwise, he was liable to say something like—

"Like your parents did?"

Well, fuck.

In his periphery, he saw Tseng's mouth tighten, dark eyes flitting to him for a second.

"They serve their purpose, too?" Cloud barrelled along. It was that or deal with the fact that he felt like he was about to puke.

This time Tseng flinched visibly, but whatever the Turk might have said or done evaporated like so much mist because Genesis finally reacted, an ugly scowl sweeping over his face.

"My parents betrayed me," he hissed, pulling himself to his feet, his book forgotten in his hand. "They were  _traitors_  from the very beginning." His voice grew.

Making an alarmed sound in the back of his throat, Cloud stepped back defensively, clasping his hand around the hilt of his sword.

The First raised a fist. It glowed red, tongues of flame squeezing out between his fingers and dripping like water from his hand, only to wink out once they'd lost contact with the main cluster of fire magic. The light cast sharp shadows over the lines creasing the man's face. Elemental magic wasn't all the same. It was why different people could have different affinities. If ice magic crystallized moisture from the air, and thunder magic depended on the energy of the target for leader formation, then fire magic was raw, most variable, generated solely from the caster. In the First's hand, it seethed, oppressive heat baking Cloud's skin from across the room. Genesis pulled his hand back, teeth bared.

Shit.

"ShinRa  _dogs_ , just like you!"

_Shit!_

The fireball sizzled as it arced, flares of flame spraying from its surface like a star preparing to nova. Cloud ripped his sword from its sheath, making an awkward sideways jump to place himself in front of Tseng. He whipped the blade up, more than half blind in the light.

The magic exploded on contact, too much power to be stable. And the heat hit him, boiling off every pocket of moisture in the room until the air tasted like sandpaper.  Almost simultaneously, the impact slammed his sword back in his arms. It felt like getting blindsided by one of the eighteen wheelers that ShinRa used for cargo. Dimly, through the swarm of spots buzzing around his eyes, he saw the fire dissipate, just as the blade was ripped out of his hands. It hummed, scything through the empty room. The motion was almost too fast for his eyes to follow.

It landed with a clatter somewhere out of his line of sight.

So this was the strength of a First.

He’d barely been able to block. He’d lost his weapon. The quiet little list ran through Cloud’s mind, detached and mechanical. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d lost this badly. He’d let go of his _sword_.

It wasn’t as if Cloud could have gone after it. His boots had lifted up off of the polished floor at the impact, and when he slammed into Tseng, all of his breath came out in one soundless gush. They flew backward into the wall, and Cloud’s head snapped back, whiplash scoring hot nails down the side of his neck at about the same time as his legs folded under him. There was a clang as something, someone, hit the mako tank. He pitched forward.

Braced on shaking arms, Cloud gagged. He wanted to shake off the ringing in his ears, but he was pretty sure his head was going to unscrew itself if he moved too quickly. His mouth tasted like acid and ash and his nose was clogged as if he'd tried to inhale the fire. More of the lights, black and bright white mixed and mingling, slashed their random paths in front of his eyes. And Tseng's body was a silent lump at his side. 

Genesis. Genesis was here. Banora. Genesis was going to— A thin line of spit trickled from his mouth as his throat seized again. He had to stand—he couldn't let Genesis— He—

Black.

His fingers dug into the wooden slats under his palms.

Black, his mind repeated.

The black was solid, a worn uniform on a broad back.

It stood ahead of him, unwavering, backlit against the light from the windows. The shadows smeared.

Firsts wore black. Years ago, when news about tensions between ShinRa and Wutai had really started going around, Cloud had seen Soldiers for the first time in some grainy newsprint photo. The blue uniforms of the Thirds and the purples of the Seconds got washed out to an ugly sepia grey, but Firsts wore black. He’d known he was going to Midgar, then.

Cloud was on his feet somehow, electric jolts running up his legs and stinging at his knees, and he ignored it all. _Black_. Laboured attempts to breathe rattled in his ears, nearly drowned out by the sound of his white-water blood just under his skin.

And in front of him, Angeal stood, Cloud's fallen sword in his hand and half-raised to face Genesis.

"So, you've made your choice."

Angeal didn't respond.

Genesis laughed, quiet and unconcerned. "Don't worry," he continued. "I have no intention of disrespecting your decision." A creak of leather. A flutter. And Genesis slipped into view. He paused at Angeal's shoulder. "But, _old friend_ ," he said, emphasizing his words as his eyes flickered briefly to Cloud's hunched form, "tell me. Can you truly live on that side?"

Then, Genesis was gone.

Cloud swallowed. His mouth tasted sour. In the shafts of sunlight that blurred all the edges and made everything in the room glow, the silence rang louder than anything Cloud had ever heard.

In front of him, Angeal shifted, twisting his wrist and dipping his head to look at the sword in his hand. His knuckles were white.

"Angea—" Cloud tried, stumbling forward.

He barely saw the First move.

He hadn't known what he'd been expecting. Angeal had left— _why had he protected Cloud_ —without saying anything in the first place. 

When Angeal whipped around— _why had he left_ —Cloud just managed to get his arms up, crossed in front of his sternum, but the forearm that came spinning at him still felt like a steel bar, shoving him back and forcing him to reel for balance. Completing his turn, Angeal let his other arm drop. The point of Cloud's broadsword bit into the varnished wood underfoot.

Cloud stared up into Angeal's face for the first time in months. The Soldier watched him with level eyes. They were dark.

Anger. Disdain.

Cloud knew his mouth was open. He stared, afraid to blink. He wasn't entirely sure if that was because he was worried that Angeal wouldn't be there if he did, or because he was worried that Angeal  _would_  be there, perfectly whole and fine and  _he had left without saying anything_.

He couldn't move.

It wasn't until after Angeal had pivoted again and stalked out of the room that the needles pinning Cloud to the floor lifted, and he sagged as he reached for his sword.

Wrenching it from the floorboards, he snatched it up and ran.

* * *

Cloud's lungs burned when he skidded to a stop. The front doors of the compound gaped before him.

He’d scoured the whole place, but he hadn’t found any sign of either of the Firsts. The facilities hadn’t seemed that big earlier, but it was like they’d never been there in the first place. A blinking status screen on the computer Tseng had been working with reported that its data wipe was complete. The papers he’d knocked to the floor during their initial search—he’d earned a hard look from the Turk for that one, and he'd had to turn his head so that Tseng wouldn't see his smirk—were still lying where they’d fallen. The guy was way too serious all the time.

It had only been the scorch marks still on the wall in the big study that had convinced him that he hadn’t hallucinated the whole thing. They’d been there.

They’d left.

Cloud eyed the open doors, gasping for air. 

There were rasping growls, and Cloud spun to see a trio of monsters charging toward him. Their cat-like heads were flattened to their bodies as they ran, dripping fangs bared around deep yowls.  Malice glinted in the beady eyes trained on him. He wasn't sure if they were local fauna that had been converted to guard...things, or if Hollander had made them somehow. Either way, Banora wasn't ranking high on his list of vacation spots so far. Gritting his teeth, Cloud swung his sword forward to meet them. He felt slow. Every cell in his body ached. He blinked, shaking his head just a bit, grasping at the ragged edges of his focus.

"Strife!"

The sound of gunfire resonated in Cloud's skull, and the monsters crumpled. Their legs tangled, momentum carrying them forward in limp slides as they fell.

Tseng's face was grey, but he looked like he was in one piece. His hair had started coming out of the tight ponytail, though, and was sticking up erratically at the side of his head. The flyaways caught Cloud’s attention for some reason, his sluggish brain stuttering as he stared.

There were more screeches, and more of the monsters were bounding through the open doors. Hissing, half in impatience and half because his head _hurt_ , Cloud turned to face them. But then a hand closed on his arm.

"Leave them to me," Tseng snapped, firing rapid shots over Cloud's shoulder. The sound of the gun and the screams of the monsters scraped like files through his ears, but at least the pounding at his temples was a dull, rhythmic thud now. Tseng’s fingers were rough, the calluses in completely the wrong places compared to a swordsman’s.

Perplexed, Cloud opened his mouth to argue.

"Go back to the village. You said Angeal's mother was waiting for him, didn't you?" Tseng cut him off again.

"But you—"

"Move, Soldier!"

The order sliced through the fog in his head like a carving knife through so much limp spaghetti, and Cloud barely resisted the urge to hop to attention. He took one step, jumped to plant both feet, and twisted through the air as he leaped over the wave of monster creatures crowding the entrance. A claw slashed out at him, but then there was a _bang_ , and a whimper.

And then he paused at the door, because the Turk had called out again.

"Strife!"

"What?" He twisted again, but Tseng wasn't looking at him. The man's face was a mask of concentration as he sighted down the barrel of his pistol.

"Thank you," the Turk said.

He hadn't been expecting that one.

Cloud opened his mouth, but then he closed it again. A grin tugged on the corner of his mouth. He waved, not waiting for acknowledgement before moving.

* * *

When he saw the door to Angeal's house hanging open, Cloud's steps faltered. It was dark inside, a viscous kind of murk that retarded the light seeping through the gap. Through the sound of his own pulse hammering, Cloud could hear the slow, bright drip of a leaking faucet somewhere out of sight. His muscles burned from his dead sprint up the hill from the base, heat flushing into his face, but in his gut, something cold was spreading.

He tried to call out, but his voice wouldn’t cooperate. Some kind of prickling, unnamable sense at the base of his neck told him that there was something in there, the same way kids probably knew that there was something lurking under the bed. It knew he was there. It was similar to the feeling of having eyes boring into the back of his skull, but somehow worse.

Swallowing, he stepped into the house.

It took some time for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. The first thing he saw was the yellow of Gillian's shawl. Its colour was a bright patch against the floor.

The pool of blood was still widening, but it had slowed to a crawl. It glistened, rust dark in the low light. As Cloud watched, a fat, heavy drop drooped from the index finger of Gillian's outstretched hand. Suddenly, it snapped free, unable to carry its weight any longer. It slapped to the ground with a muted plop.

There was a hint of movement in Cloud's peripheral vision, and he whipped around. A tall figure stood in the shadows, where the Buster had been leaning. Green outlined him, Cloud’s eyes compensating for the lack of visibility. Angeal was looking down, at the ground.

“Angeal.”

The First met his gaze for a moment before he looked back to his mother's body. Cloud couldn’t see his expression in the gritty not-light.

"What happened?" Cloud said, a hoarse whisper.

Angeal didn't react. Cloud hadn’t known what he’d been expecting, not after the silence, the weeks of wondering what the _hell_ had happened back in those foreign forests, of combing over his fragmented memories and wondering if he’d forgotten something important, or if there was something he should have done differently; but it wasn’t this stolid stillness, and the pressure in his chest, the compressed lump of what-ifs and whys and what-the-fuck _exploded_ into splinters.

"What did you  _do?_ " Cloud bellowed, surging forward. A tiny twitch drew his attention to the Buster Sword, some thin sliver of light flashing off its edge as it hung from Angeal's hand. He gestured at it, a clumsy, sweeping motion. "Is this—Fuck! What happened to your goddamn  _pride_?"

Angeal's eyes snapped up, unguarded for the first time since the war, and more than anything, it was the red, raw edges that made Cloud reel. His mouth clicked shut.

"Angeal—"

The First brushed past him, shouldering through his raised hand.

"Wait!" Cloud tripped over something—door jamb—something, when he chased. He caught himself as he tumbled, hands stretched out to break his fall. Dust billowed in his face, and he inhaled sharply, stupidly caught off guard. Coughing against the particles worming their way under his tongue, he raised his head. He froze.

He stared.

Genesis stepped away from the side of the door to Angeal's house and walked slowly toward the other First.

Cloud’s eyes were watering, and his voice was a reedy croak. He must have banged his knee, because he felt it protest as he dragged his feet back under him.

The Firsts ignored him. Genesis tilted his chin, something almost tender in his voice as he addressed Angeal.

"You see?" he said softly. "This world isn't yours anymore."

His back to Cloud, Angeal shook his head roughly.

"Angeal!"

"Do you take flight?" Genesis continued over Cloud's shout. "Fly to this world that abhors us?"

Cloud raised his sword. "Shut up!" The point wavered for a moment, and he clasped both hands around the haft. "Shut  _up_!"

Genesis let his eyes drift shut, and his voice took on its familiar cant.

"All that awaits is a sombre morrow  
No matter where the winds may blow."

"I said  _shut up_!"

Genesis turned, just a bit. And he paused, like he was making sure that Cloud was really watching. A smile ghosted over his mouth, and then...

And then—

Cloud wasn't sure what he saw. A rush of black. A torrent pouring free. Stray feathers wisped into the air. A black wing spread behind Genesis' shoulder. It was true black, not the gleam of a starling wing. It was a hole in the light. A breeze Cloud didn't feel ruffled the feathers. It stretched out, and when it slapped down against the air, the sharp sound of the downbeat was muffled by the drift of the feathers it had sent whirling out.

Cloud spun around, realizing too late that Genesis had used himself as distraction.

Angeal was gone.

"Angeal!" Cloud yelled again. The echoes bounced around the empty square uselessly, getting muddier with each pass. Angeal had vanished like he’d never been there to begin with. The feathers had sifted the dirt around on the ground until the marks on the ground didn’t make anything remotely resembling discernible tracks.

"Hmm." Genesis' voice was calm, nothing like the brilliant light that burst from his hand and settled into coruscating patterns against the air. It raced, sketching a glowing seal that pulsed in heartbeat flashes.

In the light, something formed. Mako streaks condensed, darkened, and like one of those paint-by-numbers pictures that looked like nothing but a collection of random lines until just enough detail was filled in that it suddenly _clicked_ , a draconian head took shape. It let loose a scream that had Cloud staggering, clapping his hands over his ears.

When he looked up again, Bahamut hung in the sky, fixing him with burnt coal eyes.

* * *

TBC


	6. Calling Collect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Please, Professor... Give me a number."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and settings are property of Square Enix. No profit is being sought from the writing of this fanfiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
> 
> I'm a bit late, apologies to anyone who noticed. It's a long story involving Poisonberries's business trip (I'm sure you know her from the awe-inspiring Dissidia 012 epic The Door of Souls), a cherry orchard, and a hundred ninja pirates that you probably don't want to hear.
> 
> Progress: I've more or less unlocked everything in Theatrhythm now and am just grinding for trophies at this point.
> 
> Progress that isn't bullshit: We're looking at about thirteen or fourteen chapters plus an indulgent interlude coming up after the current story arc.
> 
> Potential warnings: Crisis Core spoilers (I say that as if this entire fic hasn't been riddled with them) and my materia theory is a mixture of Crisis Core, main game, and utter bull.
> 
> Beta: Much, much credit to Poisonberries for making this edible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Part 6.**  Calling collect

 

 

The sky boiled. Blue light cored with white so bright it screwed into Cloud's retinas seethed overhead, and wisps of energy danced by his knees before shooting up to join the mass. A couple splashed over his skin as they passed, their frenzied careen dissolving into a spray of short-lived sparks. It felt like muted zaps of static shock.

Bahamut arched its wide wings, big enough to swallow the horizon, and Cloud stared up into Megaflare.

Fuck. Oh  _fuck_.

Panic tripped its way up his spine, driving spikes into all the soft, hollow bits as it hopped and skipped. The smooth bindings on the hilt of his broadsword creaked under his grip, and Cloud clenched his other fist over his sword arm to stop its sporadic shake. Dimly, in some back corner of his mind that hadn’t succumbed to the pure animal fear of staring into a predator’s eyes, he wondered who exactly it had been that he’d pissed off so badly in a past life that this shit _kept happening_.

Banora was deserted around him, the emptiness oozing from the ramshackle houses vibrating with his nerves. Evacuated. Dead. He didn't know. The clearing between the ragged row of homes filled up with clumps of dust as the shaking slowly sheared the buildings apart, beam by deliberate beam.

There was the roar of air being compressed and propelled in ragged spirals, carried along and pushed away in turns by the spin and flow of magic. His eyes skittered over grey, broken terrain, searching for a focal point away from the roil of blue. An unbroken door, a fucking rock that wasn't moving under the pressure. Anything to centre himself, let him dredge up his years of training, and pummel his jackknifing muscles back under control. His imagination slithered its way past the desperate blocks he'd erected in his mind, and a vision of his skin being flayed away burst across the inside of his skull, complete with lurid colours and the scent of scorched flesh. Exposed bone grinned at him, buried in clumps of half-seared hamburger meat.

_"Quit bitching and_ focus _!"_

The words assaulted his head, expanding through his skull and attempting to squeeze his brain down his nostrils. Cloud suppressed the jump as surprise drove its way into his senses, but his breath snagged in his throat, doubled back, and pounded on the mucus-soaked flap covering his windpipe from both sides until he seized and gagged. His eyes darted to the side before dragging back up to Bahamut's improbably airborne bulk.

That voice again—he'd heard that voice before. He was pretty sure that—

His memory was hot wax melting under the scream of fear, and he shook his head, balancing his other palm against the butt of the sword hilt.

_"You know what to do, Spike! You'll be fine!"_

The words were accompanied by a stab of incandescent agony through his temple.

Maybe it was the way terror was eating away at his intestines, but he knew that voice. Not just because it had been screaming at him since Wutai. He  _knew_  it. Right then, at that moment, it almost had a face. A name. It was important, something he was never supposed to forget. It—

Grey-blue eyes imprinted themselves across his mind, tired and old in a way that made them look just a little less like Angeal's, and fury flared radiant-hot in his gut. It soaked into his limbs, heat and tightness and the  _itch_  to streak blood over his blade, and he welcomed it like a returning friend. His head snapped up, and he glared at Bahamut.

"She didn't have to die like that!" he shrieked over the thunder of Megaflare's charge.

The great summon ignored him. It arched its back, poised to fire.

Steady...

" _Angeal!_ "

_Now._

Megaflare screamed through the air toward him, and Cloud launched himself straight upward, rejecting the wail of the muscles in his thighs at the abuse. He tucked his sword in tight, his arms clamped to his sides to minimize drag.

The magic baked his face, not exactly heat and not exactly sensation, making the hairs on his neck curl. It howled, growing in perspective as it loomed until it dwarfed Bahamut's black-scaled form, and Cloud wrenched himself to the side. He spiralled tightly, feeling Megaflare scrape like thorns down his limbs, and then he was past it. The sound of the Planet's crust crunching and collapsing rose from under his feet and the winter-grey sky stretched ahead.

Bahamut twisted its serpentine neck, mafic black eyes fixing on Cloud and its incongruously thin arms flexing out to balance it as it tried to turn in the air. Its webbed wings beat hard, flinging out to swat at him, but Cloud had already shot past. A bellow rumbled through its breast, and the draconian body began its pivot, the crackle of lightning adhering and compacting at its wings as it prepared another attack.

With a yell that ripped his voice raw, Cloud spread his legs, pedalling at the wind to direct his arc. At the apex, he raised his sword, gripped it tight with both hands, and he let himself fall into the swing.

The impact sent pain carving up his knees when he hit the ground, and he loosened his joints, tumbling into a roll that spun out of his control and sent him skidding and scraping harshly across the stone. Gouts of black blood thumped to the earth, etching ink blot patterns into the dust, and keening, Bahamut began to fall. It liquefied as it plummeted, runny streaks clinging to the sky like stains of paint on a wall, dissolving segment by segment into nothing.

A speck dropped out of the watery haze of Bahamut's belly while it slowly dissipated into the air. It hit the cobblestone and bounced, ringing out a sharp tone as clear as a bell. The next bounce hit a patch of dirt, and skipping over bloody mud, it spun to a halt in the square, the glimmer of mako wavering in the core of the materia. Slowly, it intensified to a solid glow, pulsing to a slow heartbeat.

His breath rasping in his throat, Cloud dragged his feet under him, nearly overbalancing before he pushed himself upright. He glanced around. His sword had clattered to a stop, half buried in dirt at the base of a wall. His mouth felt like it was coated with every mote of dust the ground was capable of fountaining up, and he spat. Too dry. He sucked at his cheeks, pulling in every drop of spit he could, and he spat again. Looking up, he snarled at Genesis's calm, blank stare.

"Can't even fight your own fights?" he shouted.

The black wing snapped as it flapped once, its imbalanced shape keeping the First afloat. Genesis watched him.

Cloud swung his hand hard, wishing for his sword. "Where's your pride as a Soldier, huh?"

Something flickered over the flatness of Genesis' eyes. He looked down at the spread of a gloved hand. "We are... Monsters," he said.

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

Genesis smiled, a thin, sardonic twist of his lips. "We have neither dreams nor pride. Monsters that have lost both, these unnecessary burdens to our flight."

Blood thrummed in Cloud's ears, the rush making him sway, lightheaded. "Don't give me that cryptic shit, too!"

By the glaze on the First's face, Cloud could tell Genesis had forgotten about him. Stretching a languid wing, he reached out and ran a gentle finger over the long black pinions spreading out from the angled joint near the tip. A ghost of a sigh stretched his face, and Genesis closed his eyes, a shoulder curling in and an arm wrapping around his waist.

"Soldiers aren't monsters!" Cloud tried again.

Genesis didn't seem to hear him. His wing snapping out again, he turned. A flap carried him up, soaring farther than the wing should have been able to carry him.

"Hey! Don't you fucking run, you coward!"

Black feathers rained down, twirling as they fell, as if the sky was moulting.

" _Hey!_ "

His face turned up to empty space, Cloud didn't notice the buzz of his PHS until it started its shrill ring.

"Shit."

He fished through his pockets, finally finding it in a flat panel of fabric at about knee level. He fumbled with the flip, accidentally clapping it shut and cutting off the call. It was silent for only about a second before it started vibrating again in his hand. Cloud thumbed it open.

"Strife here."

There was a burst of crackling noise, and Cloud winced, pulling the earpiece away from his head.

"—mbing to commence in—pare for—" said Tseng's voice.

"Hold on, what?" Cloud said into the speaker.

The voice came clearly this time, accompanied by the roar of machinery. "Strife! Air raid on Banora is starting. Prepare for extraction!"

Cloud's eyes widened. "Extraction? How?"

There was a loud whistle, modulating in pitch as it approached, and an explosion rocked the earth. Cloud bent his knees, absorbing the shock as he threw out a hand for balance.

"Tseng?" he yelled.

There was no response, but he'd seen the chopper by then, dipping down out of the grey sky and heading straight for him. Another shell blared through the air, turning knives in his ears until he thought he felt them leak. The force of the missile's hit made the ground shudder and roll under his feet. Dust whirled , metallic-edged against his tongue and clogging his eyes with gunk, and Cloud rubbed his arm over his face, feeling the damp grit smear. The din was fucking with his senses, making it difficult to tell up from down. Spinning in a drunken circle, Cloud squinted through dirt-sealed eyes and propelled himself into a run. Sliding on locked knees, Cloud snatched up his sword, slamming his other hand into the wall it had rested against and using the recoil to fuel his sprint toward the twisting rope ladder dangling from the chopper's open door.

He'd barely climbed through the gap before Tseng glanced back at him, twisted his fist on the throttle like he was trying to rip the skin off someone's wrist, and sent the machine shooting through the sky with enough speed to lift Cloud off his feet and dump him into the thinly upholstered bench. His head snapped back and hit something that clanged and set his teeth shaking.

" _Ow_ , fuck!"

Explosions blasted waves of pressure from behind their tail, the force of the air hitting Cloud's eardrums hard enough that he couldn't differentiate between that and the sounds of the missiles blowing. Smoke and dust compounded thick and opaque mushroomed into the sky, spits of bright fire springing up at their bases. He saw Tseng's mouth move, the Turk's face twisting sharply, but he didn't hear anything as the straining chopper reached decibels he hadn't known existed. Tremors jarred his bones, clacking them together like strung beads, and Cloud crouched low while dips and jerks tried to bounce him up off the floor. The helicopter's tail spun, its broadside tilting against an explosion, and for one disorienting moment, Cloud looked up through the windshield at the marble brown earth. The machine wobbled itself right side up, but from the way blood was flushing his head and making his brain feel like it'd swelled to twice its size, they were still losing altitude. Cloud reached for the other headset, fingers that felt fat and clumsy trying to untangle the speaker prong from where it wound around the band, but then another solid wall of pressure slammed into the helicopter, and he toppled. He felt more than heard the crunch of his shoulder going into a steel beam, and Tseng's bellow vibrated in his head, too muffled to form words.

There was the rush of air past his skin, accompanied by a sudden drop in gravity.

Through the stinging furls of pain waving in his vision, he saw Tseng's hands both go to the collective-pitch and yank furiously. It had to have had some effect, because the helicopter's fuselage shook, tipping one way and then the other.

It fell.

It continued to fall.

* * *

Cloud blinked, feeling his eyelashes scrape the dirt and seeing a fuzzy outline of the crust gathering on them. He tried his legs, taking inventory of his limbs. They seemed fine, an unbroken ache sinking into the marrow but not impeding his movement when he pulled them in toward his torso. Right arm. It creaked like an old windy door. Left arm.

Fuck fuck fuck _fuck_.

In increments, Cloud levered himself up into a hunch, cradling his left elbow to his chest as soon as he could spare his right hand. He hissed through tight teeth, and he twisted his twanging neck to look around.

The helicopter sat on the flattened dirt, looking relatively intact except for the long scars on its skids. Cloud was more concerned with Tseng, the man's limbs wrung oddly as he sprawled twenty feet away. He must have been flung out first while the chopper was bucking through its landing. Cloud tried to get to his feet, and his shoulder howled its displeasure. More than half a controlled stumble, he managed to skid to a stop near the Turk before his knees wobbled and he landed on his ass.

He squinted through bloated eyes at the slow ooze of blood from a ragged gash slashing across Tseng's hairline, and he moaned. "Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me..."

Tseng murmured something at the noise. It wasn't coherent by a long shot.

Cloud prodded at his shoulder, digging his fingers into the swelling and biting back snarls at the blistering waves of pain. Not broken. Dislocated. Going to be puffed up to all hell.

He glanced around, seeing a tree that looked like it had been mauled by a giant suction cup that stripped its bark down one side. Staggering to his feet, he walked to it, using his right hand to extend his left and press it against the smoothed wood. He felt around the dislocated shoulder again, poking carefully before he pressed his palm flat against the inside face of the joint. Taking a deep breath and loosening his jaw slowly, Cloud shoved hard with his right hand at the same time as he leaned into the tree.

It was actually a bit impressive, the way his scream echoed like that.

The sound died away into an abrupt sob, and he sagged, sitting down hard. The black edges of his vision swung on him, vertigo trying to upend his stomach, and he turned it into a choked laugh. A memory flickered through his mind. The voice probably thought he was losing it. Gasping for breath through another chuckle, he poked at the inside of his head like sticking his tongue into a cavity.

Hello, hello.

The voice didn't respond.

Cloud wasn't sure how he felt about imaginary disembodied voices ignoring him. He'd been ignored plenty already, between Genesis, who couldn't hold up his end of a damn conversation, and Angeal, who'd—

Cloud screwed his eyes shut and slammed the door on that train of thought. He squeezed the hand over his shoulder, bleating heat streaking down his arm and distracting him from the acidic fury that simmered in his gut. Gillian Hewley's limp form, delicate thin fingers splayed out on the dirt floor, painted itself across the inside of his eyelids and punched a shock of ice through his chest.

Angeal, who'd left. Again.

Cloud growled and shook his head. Rotating his torso around, he kept his eyes fixed on Tseng to provide a focal point for balance as he half-crab walked, half slid on his ass toward the Turk.

"Oi, Tseng," he croaked. He cleared his throat. "Tseng. Can you hear me?"

The Turk muttered.

Cloud could see the deep blue of the bruise soaking its way across the man's forehead and down the side of his cheek. He was going to have one mother of a headache. "Got a Cure on you?" he asked.

"Cure?" The response was halting.

"Yeah, you know. Shiny, green, not much good for a game of marbles."

Tseng managed to make an irritated noise without opening his eyes. "Bracer," he said, finally.

"Oh good, you're actually lucid."

Tseng groaned deep in his chest.

"Mostly." Cloud checked the wrong wrist first, and then he leaned over the man and tugged up his other tattered sleeve. The expensive suit was beyond salvage. Cloud wondered if the Turks would ever change their uniform to something more practical. Or colourful. He exhaled loudly through his dust-clogged nose when he found the bracer undamaged, studded with twinkling beads like a localized constellation. With soft clicks, the materia came unchambered. Sitting them in his palm, he examined them. The Cure gleamed a pale green, softer and more alive than the darker shade of the Fire and the Thunder. Hesitating for a moment, he mouthed the Cure, keeping it clenched between his lips as he tucked the attack magic and the Long Range into a pocket. He'd return them later, but they might be useful for now. The last thing he needed was Turks breathing down his neck over stolen materia on top of the rest of the shitfest.

Rolling the Cure back into his palm, he frowned down at its glossy shell for a moment. It was quite a bit more difficult to direct spells without first equipping the materia, but he didn't think he could get the Turk's bracer off with one hand.

Breathing deeply, he closed his eyes, concentrating on the smooth weight of the ball in his hand and pulling to mind an image of a flower unfurling. Angeal had taught him that meditation techniques greatly enhanced focus with materia what felt like centuries ago. The materia flared to life.

He pressed the healing spell into Tseng's skin first. There was a glimmer of green, sinking gently into the dark patch of the bruise, and Cloud watched the Turk's eyelids flicker. Not wanting to risk scarring from overdoing the healing when the recipient wasn't able to respond with clarity, he shrugged, and he turned the next spell to his shoulder.

It always felt weird, little pinpricks and prods snagging on the flesh under the surface of his skin and tugging any torn tissue together like miniature tweezers dragging on the severed ends of muscle and connective tissue fibres. Reconnecting the severed strands also cleared up the drainage pathways, letting the edema subside a bit. It couldn't get rid of the swelling entirely, though. That would take care of itself with time, using the stream of natural healing flowing through any living thing's body.

Cloud had generally been good at casting, but Angeal had said that understanding the basis of the spell would increase his efficiency and output by several times, and he'd ground the texts into Cloud's head.

Cloud's teeth grated together.

Angeal. Always fucking Angeal.

A shredded groan dropped heavily from Tseng's mouth, and Cloud clawed together his focus. He tested his arm, scowling when it eased slowly into position, resisting his attempt at movement. Dull throbs pounded out from his shoulder. Better than nothing.

He could already see the twisted husk of Tseng's PHS lying forlornly next to shards of black plastic and a heavily scraped rock. Pulling his own out, he flipped up the screen. It flashed a bunch of grainy lines at him, blinked, and subsided to darkness. Cloud punched at a couple of buttons with his thumb, but it didn't respond, showing only his hazy reflection on the murky display. Cursing long and low under his breath, he slung it off into the distance with a jerk of his elbow. It made a faint crunching sound when it hit the ground.

Cloud looked up at the darkening sky. The barren landscape contained nothing but rocks and brown grassy stubble.

He could try to light a signal fire or something. ShinRa would probably come looking for them when they didn't report back within a day or two.

He tilted his head to look over his shoulder when Tseng moaned again.

Well fuck.

He eyed the curled edges of the scuffed paint job on the helicopter.

Mumbling an apology, he hooked an arm around Tseng's waist, grabbed one of his arms just under the ball of the joint, and he heaved the Turk up onto his good shoulder. There was a loud retching sound, and something warm splashed down his back. The smell made his stomach surge in response, but he tamped down the urge to follow Tseng's lead.

He laid the Turk flat on the bench in the back of the chopper, arranging him so that his knees hung off the end of the fixture in a way that didn't look too uncomfortable. Climbing over the partition between the pilots' seats, he settled himself at the controls. The ignition key was still in place.

Inhaling slowly through his teeth so that it whistled, he sent a quick prayer to anything that could be listening and merciful, and he gripped the head of the lever at his side, slowly twisting his wrist to open the throttle. The rotor hummed to life over his head, and he let out his breath in a quick whoosh. Adjusting his hold on the collective pitch, he began to pull.

An alarming clanking noise echoed through the fuselage, and Cloud hastily cut the throttle.

The clanks slowed, becoming isolated thunks before rattling to a stop, and Cloud leaned forward to thump his forehead against the dashboard. He did it again for good measure. He sighed, sliding out of the chair and balancing himself on the rim of the door frame.

Emptying his stomach and the subsequent sound of the rotor grinding to life had yanked Tseng from his stupor, it seemed, because as Cloud inched along the door frame, clutching at the smooth, heated canopy with open palms to maximize the friction keeping him up, the Turk's apprehensive voice wound out of the back.

"What are you doing?"

Cloud grunted, swinging his legs to propel himself up onto the roof, a hand snagging at the rotor mast. "Getting us out of here."

"What?" There was a distinctly worried tinge to the Turk's voice now.

"Look, shut up. I know what I'm doing. This is just a standard military chopper."

Tseng didn't say anything else, but Cloud could hear his restless movements.

He pulled at the loose nut holding the upper swash plate flush against the lower, and he groaned. The threads were gone, scraped clean off, and one of the control rods was bent. The rod was easily fixed, but... Cloud shifted his weight, and the materia in his pocket clinked. He paused.

"Hey, pass me up your bracer. And something small and metal," he called.

He heard some shuffling, and eventually a glittering shard appeared in Tseng's extended hand. It looked like it had been chipped off a larger blade.

"Thanks."

Cloud clicked the bracer shut around his wrist, slipping the Fire into the first slot. Channelling a bit of energy into it, he directed the heat into the metal pressed against a smooth area of the bronze bracer, keeping it contained inside so that it couldn't be exposed to oxygen and catch the thing on fire. One of the edges fused easily enough into the bronze.

The thick leather of his gloves was starting to smell like burnt cow, and he pulled his fingers off briefly to shake them. Narrowing his eyes, he heated the metal again, one of its ends still melted to the bracer, and he began to pull at a snail's pace.

The silence frayed at the nerves squirming down his neck into his shoulders, the swollen one trying to seize up on him again, and as he worked, he gnawed at a lip.

"So why'd you join Turks?" he said, offhand.

Tseng didn't respond for so long that he thought the man had fallen unconscious again.

Then, " _Pardon?_ "

Cloud snickered at the tone. "You know, just making conversation. Helps me concentrate. What made you join Turks?"

It was quiet again for a moment. "I utilize my talents to the best of my abilities in the department," Tseng said, stiffly.

"What, that's it? Come on, I know that you're good at what you do. That's not really a reason, though."

"My motives do not concern Soldier."

Cloud sighed, rolling his eyes. He stilled his motions, surprised, when Tseng started speaking again, his voice soft.

"I was originally slated for the Soldier program before being recruited for Turks. There is... someone I wish to protect, and I was convinced that I would best be able to do so as a member of Turks."

Cloud dragged on the growing string of metal again, frowning. "The Vice President?"

There was a quiet sound, like a laugh that didn't quite stir Tseng's vocal cords. "No."

"A girl, then?"

Silence.

When Tseng spoke next, his words were slow, as if coming from far away. "I owe a debt of gratitude to the Director of Soldier, and to Angeal. It was due to their influence that—"

"Shut the  _fuck_ up about Angeal."

The silence echoed in Cloud's ears.

"You saw him just as well as I did," Cloud said, tension strung tight in his voice. "He left. He decided to desert. Nothing else. He  _decided_  to—" he cut himself off, listening to his breath whistle in his nose as he pressed his mouth closed.

"Strife, I am aware that you—"

"Actually, I don't think the small talk is helping," Cloud interrupted.

Tseng hummed and subsided.

Cloud shut his eyes and leaned his forehead against the roof of the chopper. He snorted, the conversation replaying itself in his head without his consent. Bastard probably changed the subject like that on purpose.

Cloud examined the stout nut again, satisfied that the thin thread of steel had settled properly against the inside of the ring. He pumped another spike of energy into the materia, and the wire fused to the surface of the nut. Spitting onto his gloved fingers, he ran a couple over the new thread. It sizzled briefly, and when Cloud tested it again, it was cool to the touch.

Cloud screwed it onto the plate, using his enhanced strength to wrench it tight until the metal groaned under his hand and his grip had to either start slipping or dent the surface. Sliding down the side of the canopy on his stomach, he tapped to the ground lightly. He checked the engine next, remembering the grinding noise that preceded the rotor starting. There was dust in the valve, and the spark plug, set with a glittering little chip of thunder materia, was gummed up. Cloud tugged off his gloves with his teeth.

When he looked up again, Tseng was sitting in the co-pilot's seat, watching him with slitted eyes.

Cloud swung himself up into the cabin, easing into the other chair. He ignored the way the Turk's gaze followed him.

"That ought to do it," he said mildly, and he reached for the ignition again. The engine barely sputtered before turning over.

He was pulling on the collective pitch, carefully adjusting for torque, when Tseng leaned closer. "Where did you learn to fix a helicopter, Strife?"

Cloud glanced at the Turk, confusion tugging at his mouth. "What? At ShinRa. I get called down to the garage to do this kind of stuff all the time." The cyclic pitch lever shifted smoothly under his hand, and the chopper banked while Cloud eyed the bearing on the compass.

Tseng's eyes were unreadable as they fixed flatly on his face. "No, you don't. To this date, you didn't display any knowledge on how to pilot one, either."

"Huh?" Cloud scowled, and then he shook his head. "Your Turks sources must not be as well-informed as you think. I've always been good at this shit."

Tseng sat back, face still closed. Cloud thought he caught a flicker of disorientation in the man's blank eyes.

He looked over, open sky stretching out ahead of him, and he saw Tseng's frown. The Turk's eyebrows creased, and his lips parted, mouthing something soundlessly. He looked up at Cloud, squinting hard. "Did you succeed in your objective in Banora?" he said slowly, the words dragging out like putty.

Cloud blinked. "Uh, well, considering both Genesis and Angeal are still alive and flapping, I'd guess not. I assume you managed to get some information about how they're making these Genesis clones from the warehouse or Genesis's parents' house or something, doing your Turk thing." His hand clenched around the lever at his side for a moment. "Didn't manage to talk some sense into them either, no matter what the General thought I could possibly do. Angeal never listens to me, anyway."

"Who?"

Cloud stared at Tseng. The man's eyes had nearly glazed over, and the bruise down half his face had gone a particularly bright puce.

"Guess that bump on the head scrambled your brains more than I figured," he said, mostly under his breath.

"Strife?"

"Try to get some rest. It's gonna be a bit of a trip, even with the way people tell me I drive." He tried for a grin.

The Turk slumped back, shutting his eyes without acknowledging him. The chopper's blades thumped steadily, and Cloud flexed the shoulder that ached.

"You're not the only one Angeal left behind," Tseng said, his voice suddenly sharp. "You should not let personal feelings interfere with your quality of work."

Cloud gritted his teeth, staring ahead into the empty horizon.

* * *

Cloud's eyes felt scratchy, lumpy sandpaper coating the insides of his eyelids and scoring shallow lines over his corneas. He reached up, slapping his palms into his sad sack of a pillow in a futile attempt to puff it up under his head before settling on lacing his fingers at his nape.

The apartment was dark, the heavy blinds drawn over the windows hanging limp. There was a clock hanging in the little galley of a kitchen that Travers had gotten him on a trip down below-plate once, a simple round face on which a cartoon girl with black hair and a short red dress sat. The gimmick was that her breasts jiggled with the tick of the second hand. Travers had found that sort of shit utterly hilarious. He'd grinned every time he saw it, even years later.

It had a distinctive tick, that clock, a grumbling whirr preceding each sharp click of the counter.

He could hear it through the wall from his bed, whurrr _tick-_ ing away, and he considered forcing his stiff muscles to let him get up and yank the batteries out of the thing so that he could finally get some fucking sleep.

Something in the radiator clanked and gurgled, and Cloud sighed, tugging his shoulder blades closer together in a stretch and grinding the back of his head into the pillow.

He was still in his uniform pants, though he'd shucked the belt and vest when he got in, and the movement made something in his back pocket crinkle. Shifting his hips just enough to stick a couple of fingers into the deep pouch, he tugged out a scrap of paper.

Once he'd landed the chopper on base, ground control had thoroughly bitched him out for coming in at reckless speeds and so help him Planet the only reason they hadn't gunned him down was because the kid waving the semaphore sticks had recognized him and came running to stop them. He'd handed Tseng off to the medics under the hostile stares of a couple of other Turks after that, and trudged up to the executive floors to report.

Lazard hadn't looked very surprised at his account of the stolen Shinra technology and Genesis copies swarming the Firsts' hometown, but Cloud had been watching the man closely enough to notice when the thin lines around the Director's eyes tightened at the news of Gillian Hewley's death. When he'd tried to explain about Tseng's injury precipitating his rush to get back to Midgar and that he'd been in complete control of the helicopter at all times, the Director had lowered his head into his hand before waving the other to stop Cloud. The man's angular shoulders had jerked as if he was laughing, but his voice had been steady when he dismissed Cloud with an order to attend a meeting the next morning.

Cloud hadn't said anything about the voice shouting at him in his head.

On his way out, the Director's secretary had flagged him down and asked him to move an unnecessarily large printer-copier combo across the lobby. She'd followed him and palmed his ass when he leaned over to put it down again, but he'd been too tired to do much more than grin at her and excuse himself. She must have slipped the piece of paper into his pocket then.

Squinting, he read it, the crisp lines of the ink edged in the mako glow of his eyes.

_Mandy._  And a PHS number.

Groaning, Cloud dropped his forearms over his eye sockets, crumpling the slip in his hand. The note had reminded him that he was going to have to requisition a new PHS.

There were several heavy thumps against the door to the hallway, and Cloud froze. Whoever it was pounded again.

Cloud kicked off the sheets, and with a quick roll, he was padding toward the narrow door.

It was a trio of MPs, the one in the back tall enough to tower over Cloud. The man who had his fist raised to knock lowered his arm, and he nodded at Cloud, his helmet opaque over his face.

"Soldier Second Class Strife, sir?"

"What?"

The MP seemed to grimace at the impatience in his tone. "Apologies for intruding so late—"

"Could we get to the point?"

The MP paused, his mouth thinning. "Please come with us, sir."

Cloud scrubbed a palm over his face, the other hand still on the edge of the door. He debated slamming it shut, but then they'd just start knocking again, and he didn't think he was allowed to hit these guys on those grounds. "Can't it wait until tomorrow?"

"It's urgent, sir."

Scowling, Cloud turned to get dressed, but the MP slapped his hand against the door frame right by Cloud's arm.

"It's really urgent," he said, shrugging a shoulder lightly.

They watched as he stuffed his feet into his boots and grabbed his lanyard.

* * *

Something Cloud couldn't explain clawed its way up his spine at the sight of the hunched back, long white coat drooping to the man's knees.

"Well, it's about time," the Professor said, a peevish cant to his speech. It almost masked how tired his voice sounded.

It  _was_  fucking late at night for a medical checkup, though.

The MPs saluted behind him before clattering off down the hallway. They'd descended far enough through the tower that the chill soaking in through the walls pebbled Cloud's bare skin, the hairs on the back of his neck raising with a slow crawling sensation. He clamped his heels together, straightening his shoulders to stand to attention.

"Are Soldiers so lofty now that they ignore PHS summons?" The Professor's mouth twisted, and he tilted his head back to stare at Cloud down the length of his nose, where his glasses looked precariously perched.

"Unfortunately, Professor Hojo, I am no longer in possession of my PHS due to unforeseen circumstances relating to my previous missi—" Cloud's words cut off with a hiss at the jab of thin fingers into his inflamed shoulder. His knuckles popped loudly when his fist tightened, and he snapped his jaw closed, staring just a bit above and to the left of Hojo's temple.

Hojo hummed, pacing around him and pressing cold fingertips against sore bruises he hadn't known he'd had.

Cloud refused to flinch.

"Not my concern, Soldier. Get yourself another one so that you don't waste my time again."

"Yes, Professor."

The scientist grunted, completing his circuit and stopping in front of Cloud. "Well, come on, then."

Cloud's eyes flickered around the lab. There was a reclining chair in the centre of the room under the clustered beams of several theatre lights, padded restraints on the arm bars and leg rest that stood up from the body of the chair with all the stiffness inherent in their steel bar cores.

Spirals and surges of nausea weaved their way around his stomach.

"Come on where, sir?"

There was a sharp sigh. "Your stupidity exceeds my expectations," Hojo said, rolling his eyes behind the thick lenses of his glasses, the curvature magnifying the sallow bags under them.

The Professor stalked toward the chair, and reluctantly, Cloud followed.

He rarely saw Professor Hojo, since the scientist barely ever came up to the Soldier floors. There'd been that time he'd been in the VR training room, and the Professor had come in, told Cloud that he was employing his services in a simulated field test of a strength serum made for Soldiers, and jabbed a syringe of red fluid into his neck while he'd been trying to watch the technicians who'd entered with the Professor fiddle with the simulation dials.

When he'd woken up, flat on the floor, the VR equipment was trashed, pungent smoke curling up from the blank gauges, and his limbs looked like they'd been through a meat grinder. Through the shitstorm of physical misery, he remembered Hojo sighing and walking out, muttering something about berserker side effects. His memory of the rest of that week was a bit hazy, but he recalled Angeal's voice, more unnerved than he'd ever heard, and wide hands patting his face and hauling him down to the infirmary when his lungs collapsed on him.

"Sit," the Professor said, snapping his fingers at the chair.

Cloud perched on the edge of the seat, slowly nudging himself backward into the yielding leather, still scanning the room as if a means of escape would suddenly present itself. "What's this for, Professor?"

"Be quiet. You've already wasted several hours of my time, and I have no desire to squander any more." There was a weird edge to Hojo's voice, though, that he didn't remember from the VR incident. That time, he'd sounded barely interested. Now, he seemed almost... angry. The Professor flicked a hand, and a couple of technicians were hovering over the chair, snapping the cuffs into place over Cloud's wrist and ankles.

Everything inside Cloud balked.

"What the hell— hey, wait!" Cloud tugged at the restraints, but they didn't even wiggle. "The fuck do I need these cuffs for?"

The look Hojo shot him was corrosive.

He yanked again, harder. His breath was coming faster, shallow pants that did nothing to oxygenate his blood.

Green was oozing down his vision, pooling at the bottom of his field of view like his eyes were filling up with gallons of mako. He opened his mouth again, and a flurry of bubbles raced up the wall of colour, bursting with little popping noises when they slapped against the point of his nose, and what felt like battery acid was pouring down his throat, flooding his trachea and stomach. He gagged, coughing, but that just forced more of the fluid into his lungs.

Cloud clamped his mouth closed on a ragged moan, what felt like every one of his organs screeching desperately for air, and he screwed his eyes shut as well.

The sensation of liquid smothering him vanished, his lungs sucked at chilled oxygen filtering in from the air, and the burn of concentrated mako over his skin wisped to nothing.

Not real. It wasn't real.

His mind chanted, over and over again, and his breath whistled harshly in his throat.

His eyes slammed open at the jab of a needle into the crook of his arm, and he whipped his head around in time to see the plunger finish its depression, and the last of the green glow vanish from the syringe.

Heat seared through his skin, flowing outward from his elbow and flushing its way through his veins, rushing up into his heart. The cardiac muscle slammed through a spasm, clenching into a massive contraction that sent the feverish burn racing out through every artery into every last cell of his body.

Someone was screaming, he realized.

It sounded like him.  _Shit._

Fire engulfed him.

* * *

Burn. It burned.

The smell of singed hair assaulted his nostrils, and he curled up instinctively, hacking until it felt like his lungs were sliding up out of his windpipe. He cracked his eyes open, and the heat of the fire immediately made them yowl like they were blistering and peeling out of their sockets, so he clapped them shut again.

Shit, there were flames everywhere.

Cloud used his arms to shield his face, forcing the sensation of the skin on his forearms slowly desiccating and cracking open into leaking slits and fissures into the back of his mind, where its muffled squeals gnawed at his consciousness. Crouching as low as he could, he heaved himself to his feet, his boots feeling like they were lined with coals. He shuffled for the draft he felt, just on the edge of the skin over his ribs, and he nearly ploughed into the ashy ground when he tripped over a prone form.

He juggled his hands, as the floor was too hot to touch with bare skin for more than a few seconds at a time, and he pushed himself up onto his haunches.

"Oi, are you okay in there?"

It took a few tries to locate the man's head under the twisted coat he had hiked up over his hair. Cloud gave the man's shoulder a shake. "Oi," he said again, before pressing a couple of fingers over the major pulse point at the man's nape.

He needn't have bothered.

He tugged the ripped coat back over the body's head, and he peered around with bleary slits of eyes.

Window. Its shutters were half closed, one of them banging erratically against the window's frame in response to gusts of wind that flapped into the room and flared the flames they fanned. Shielding his head, Cloud made a shambling run at it, and he felt it crunch and drive splinters into his bare skin as he crashed through.

The cooler air outside hit him with the force of a brick between the eyes, and he ended up flat on his back on sandy earth, gasping for air as his vertebrae squealed and creaked.

Cloud rolled onto an elbow, ignoring the way it complained at the grit digging into the joint, and he flipped over onto his hands and knees. They shook a bit, and his vision swam black for a long moment, but they held his weight when he pushed himself up.

Everything was burning. The crackle of flames sounded oddly cheery against the muffled roar of every fucking thing burning to the greasy soot-blackened ground. The dark shapes of bodies lay strewn over the dirt, a couple lying in a tangle under half of a blazing wooden beam. It collapsed further, rolling into the dips of a body and spitting out a shower of sparks.

Cloud didn't approach the corpses, turning eyes smarting with acrid, unctious smoke from combusting body fat toward the centre of the clearing. A water tower loomed, silhouetted black against the fire, driving cold spikes into his brain at the familiar shape.

"What the fuck is this?" he whispered, turning fully to face the tower.

The heat vanished so quickly it felt like a vacuum had opened, and Cloud barely had time to stagger, his boots clanking over the steel-plated floor, before his body jerked. Silently, he tipped his head down to look at the glistening blade embedded in his stomach, squishing through his soft innards, though it didn't seem to have torn through any of the fragile, slick membranes, judging from the lack of stench. A trickle of blood beaded up at the edge of the gash where his skin split, tickling and making his muscles clench reflexively as it started rolling and prickling all the little fine hairs set in his skin.

Sweeps and crests of incandescent sensation, interspersed with shocks of numbness, rippled through him as the nerves sitting under his ripped skin caught up with the stimulus, and an ugly squawking sound forced its way out of his throat.

It was too bright to be pain, too sharp. He brought his hands up, wrapping his stiff fingers around the sword crushed through his body.

Through the fog of numbness spreading over his skin and into his eyes as his insides shut down, piece by piece, he looked up at the tall shadow gripping the hilt of the sword. Nothing. He saw nothing there. It looked like a black cut out, an amorphous singularity siphoning away the light.

A wrench, and the sword ripped free of his body.

Falling to his knees, Cloud clutched at the slippery fluids and rubbery walls of something trying to nudge its way out of the hole. He pressed hard on it, but it was squelching muddily between his spread fingers. Cloud stared at the pebbled metal under his knees, rasps, gulping and bubbling, clawing at his trachea.

"What the fuck is this..." The words came garbled to his ears.

A dream. Some kind of fucked up nightmare.

He remembered being injected with something. Green. Mako. Where had he been?

Blanks stretched in his memory, eating away at his mind, chewing and spitting grey matter and leaving putrid, pus-filled holes.

What the hell had happened to him?

A hand, heavy and wide, clamped on his shoulder, and Cloud whipped around, an elbow and a fist lurching out defensively without thinking.

"Whoa, calm down!"

Cloud blinked, his vision free from the grainy fuzz of dying, and he looked up into exasperated blue eyes. The gloved hand that had been on his collar was raised, tilted to catch his fist and block his other strike at the same time. It was steady, solid as a wall, barely straining to stop his blows.

White feathers brushed the side of his arm.

Snarling, he ripped his hands away, and his feet skidded, his ankle turning violently under him as he yanked himself up. The skin over his stomach was whole and smooth, even if everything inside still felt sliced to ribbons.

"You're not real!" he growled, twisting his face at Angeal's faint smile.

A short laugh.

"You're right. I'm not real. This is a dream."

"I'm not dreaming about you!"

The thing that looked like Angeal shrugged, his wing curling and flexing over his shoulder blade, brilliantly bright against a dead white landscape. "You don't have much of a choice. I'm here to make sure you wake up."

It hurt, being this angry. It ripped at his chest, squeezing and rending the walls of his ribs and crushing his organs to pulp. "I don't need any help from some cuntwad that left!" he shouted, backing up another step. "You left me behind! You didn't even  _say_  anything!"

"What would you have wanted me to say?"

"A  _reason_!"

Angeal looked at him, something gentle in his tired eyes. He sighed, and the sound tore tattered holes through Cloud worse than the sword in his gut. "Wake up, Cloud. There's something you have to do. You're probably the only one who can."

"I'm not doing anything for you," he said through tight teeth, staring at the blank, shadowless ground under Angeal's boots.

Angeal snorted. There was a rustling noise, and something touched his head, almost too light to feel. The scent of warm leather and mineral oils seeped into his mouth, coating his palate, and he choked on a pure, froth-tipped wave of longing.

His sight blinked out.

* * *

There were hands. Cold, thin fingers. They pried open a set of his eyelids, and a pinpoint of light so bright it seared flashed into his retina.

Cloud tried to flinch away, but he couldn't move.

A wall of thick, muffling phlegm was stuffing every inch of his respiratory tract. It was hard to breathe. Hard to think. He forced his lungs to expand, the effort a fanged drain, barbed edges dragging on his mind, and air whistled through nostrils that felt smashed to his skull. Thump. His head spun. Weight crushed down on him until he couldn't feel anything but the compression of his chest and the shudder of his ribs.

"Hmm... Recovery time better than expected."

The voice. It poured into his bones, sent fear seeping through his marrow, ground his cartilage to dust with shame.

"And how are we feeling?"

The voice. The voice was speaking to him. Useless. He was useless. He cracked his mouth open, a gurgle scrabbling up his vocal cords.

"Number..." he tried to say. It came out a reedy whistle. "Please, Professor. Give me a number..."

"Hmm?" Sterile antiseptic smell leaned over him. "What was that, Soldier?"

Too soft, too soft... Couldn't hear. Failure. He was... He parted his lips, licking at them with a dry, swollen tongue that flopped fatly.

_Come on, Spike._

His breath caught. Warmth.

_Please, Spike. You've come so far._

He listened to the echoes, deep in his head.

_Cloud. Hold on. Please. For me._

Cloud drew chilled air into his mouth, down into his dust-cracked lungs. Crunches, wet snaps reverberated when his tightly ground joints popped, like chains falling unlinked. Pain, sharp in his mouth where he dug an incisor into his cheek, and a warm drizzle tapped onto his tongue. He hissed, prying his eyes open a sliver to white light.

"Just peachy, Professor," he croaked.

He couldn't see. Just a sense of movement.

There was a short hum, and a jarring flash as the light was pulled away. "Good enough," the Professor said.

He heard the clatter of footsteps, clops slurred and muffled in thick, raw wool.

* * *

Cloud woke to a faded stucco ceiling.

His head felt like a herd of elephants had used it for a game of football, but he wasn't strapped down anymore.

There was a jaw-cracking yawn to his side, and he turned his head to see Kunsel hunch over, propping his arms on his knees.

"About time you woke up."

"Kunsel?"

"The one and only." The Second made a move to help when Cloud inched up onto his elbows, but he waved the man off, pulling himself backward to lean against the grated bars of the bed at his back. "You were out for nearly a day. Missed a meeting with a couple of the directors." Kunsel tilted his head, a pale reflected gleam laying a streak over the curve of his helmet and making Cloud squint. "How much do you remember of what happened?"

Cloud stared up at the ceiling. Light from outside, yellow from the play of light pollution on the low-lying mixture of fog and greenhouse gases, traced a shadow of the window frame onto the ridges of the stucco overhead. It brightened momentarily, beams swinging around upon the passage of a grumbling truck's headlights. His forehead creased as he dug through his memory.

"Just four inches south of abso-fucking-nothing," he said, frustration edging his voice. "I get back from an investigation mission with Turks in Angeal's hometown that the  _General_  refused to take, and the next thing I know a bunch of MPs are bashing my door down and Hojo sticks something in my arm before I wake up here."

Kunsel made a face that could have been either a grimace or a smile. "The Professor bumped up your mako levels. You didn't react so badly last time, so Lazard figured you'd be fine this time around, too." He leaned back, shifting around like his ass had gone numb. "At least you're not scheduled for another pump for a little while," he said with a vague wave of his fingers. "And getting your enhancements up will mean you can be even more of a monster with that thing you call a sword."

Kunsel paused, his mouth pursing, and Cloud realized that he must have winced at the word. "Sorry, headache," he said, because it wasn't that much of a lie. He cleared his throat, his tonsils feeling like they were rattling around like marbles. "Meeting?"

Kunsel pulled out a crumpled brown folder that he tossed into Cloud's lap. "It was about a mission to retrieve the Soldiers we lost during the war. They think they've found where those Wutai bastards have been keeping their POWs. Details are in that file."

"You think—" Cloud paused to wet his cracked lips. "You think they're alive?"

Kunsel watched him for a moment, and then he shrugged slightly. "We really don't know. Since you're stuck here, though, they're thinking of giving the mission to someone else."

"Bullshit. I'm fine."

Kunsel sighed. "If you say so. Director Lazard wants to see you when you're up, anyway. Take it up with him." He was digging in a pocket, and when he turned again, he reached over to press something black and angular into Cloud's hand.

Cloud ordered his rigid and unresponsive fingers to loosen. He ran a thumb over the shiny face of a PHS, a newer model than his last. He frowned, looking up. "Have you just been waiting there?"

Kunsel shrugged again. "Same number. It's already hooked up to the network, so all your backed up contacts should be intact. I took the liberty of making some corrections while I was sitting here."

Cloud narrowed his eyes, flipping open the screen. Nothing seemed out of place until he scrolled through his contacts and came across "Kunsel the Man" and Robertsson's name replaced with a penis joke. He snorted.

"Fine. Thank you."

"I'm just awesome like that."

Kunsel leaned back with a sigh, scrubbing at his face and pressing a hand over the dome of his helmet to block out the thin artificial light.

He tilted his arm, turning his head to Cloud under it. "You sure you're going to be okay, Cloud?" he said bluntly. "You look like shit."

Cloud let his head droop on his wooden neck. He eyed the tension lines around Kunsel's mouth, raising his eyebrows until a dry, lopsided grin crossed over the Second's face. He laughed, more exhale than sound, and he smiled back. "So do you."

* * *

The mako surged through him, drying his mouth and coating his teeth with fuzzy gunk, and even his hair ached. His body didn't fit right. He kept overshooting his step, and he'd already smashed a mug by accidentally slinging it across the waiting area outside Lazard's office. It'd hit the wall a few feet from where the secretary's desk was, and Mandy had given him a nervous smile when he'd apologized anxiously before refusing to let him help clean up the ceramic splinters.

One of Hojo's assistants had discharged him after poking and prodding him for a few minutes, and she'd told him in a bored tone that he'd adjust fairly quickly before walking off.

He stood to attention in front of Lazard's desk, ignoring Heidegger's aggravated grunt.

The executive groused, turning to Lazard. "You want to send an operative who's going to need to relearn how to walk? We don't have time for this nonsense, Lazard! Valuable resources are in the hands of Wutai rebels! We could stand to—"

"When's the mission, Director?" Cloud interrupted. He knew that speaking over Heidegger like that was just going to piss him off even more beyond belief, but at that point, he could not be bothered to give a fuck.

Lazard leaned forward, eyeing Cloud over his laced fingers. "Two days' time, Strife."

"This is a disaster waiting to happen, man!"

Cloud nodded sharply, meeting the Director's quiet look. "I'll be ready."

* * *

TBC


	7. Safety net strings 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Just... waiting."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and settings are property of Square Enix. No profit is being sought from the writing of this fanfiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
> 
> Yeah. I have no good excuse for you this time, sorry. Life is occasionally shitty.
> 
> This chapter quickly became ridiculously long, so I've delayed the actual mission bit yet again.
> 
> Thanks as always go to Poisonberries for being super awesome beta. And gamma.

**Part 7A.**  Safety net strings

 

 

Cloud did not wait well. He dug the fingers of both hands into a thigh, trying to squeeze out the tension in muscles that lurked just at the edge of spasm. He'd already tried fidgeting, but that just shifted the buzz to the rest of his body. Lifting the leg, he kicked out, flexing his foot. The hollow metal bars holding his folding chair in shape groaned.

The airships docked in an enclosed dome at the Junon base, accessible only through an interminable elevator ride. At the far end, where the ceiling folded in on itself like a massive bronze fan, bottomless pits chewed into the floor, sending up an incessant draft.

On the second kick, he clipped one of the legs of Robertsson's chair, and the other Second unfolded his arms at the clunk and turned a bit to glare at Cloud.

"What the fuck, Strife. Go do some squats or something."

Cloud scowled back at the man, but he stood up. "I hate this shit. Waiting. We could have been halfway there by now," he said, jiggling out his legs.

"Yeah, well, too fucking bad. You hopping around dancing the tango isn't going to make it any more likely that the POWs aren't already belly-up in a ditch somewhere."

"Dammit, Robertsson—"

The Second raised his voice to speak over him. "And if you tell me how tough your buddy Travers is one more time, I'm going to sack him so hard next I see him he's going to be vomiting testicle juice for days."

Cloud stared. His face twisted at the imagery. "What crawled up your ass and died?"

Robertsson sneered at him, crossing his arms again and leaning onto the back legs of his chair, tipping it against the wall so that he could press his shoulders into the surface. The motion pulled at the skin on his upper arm, and Cloud saw the man's eyes tighten. It was the closest the frigid ass got to wincing, as far as he could tell.

Cloud stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Way to hold a grudge," he muttered.

"Just lemme break your arms and we'll call it even," Robertsson said shortly.

Cloud pivoted, resisting the urge to tip Robertsson's chair over. He took a few shuffling steps forward before a couple of Regs carrying a crate hustled by, and he had to sidestep them.

He'd spent a lot of time at the Junon airbase before, with Evans and Hoffe, and sometimes Travers when he'd been dumped by another girl and wanted to pretend that he was going to take a flying leap off one of the dock ladders. The engineers had always been inordinately enthusiastic when they saw him and Evans. It had taken Cloud a while to realize that they hated the clunky cranes they usually used to move the parts.

He pulled out his PHS and thumbed through his contacts until Hoffe's name flashed white against the background of his screen. The message log was dated two months old. He should—

Evans's folded hands scratched themselves across the insides of his eyelids, his clean nails pale against his dark skin.

When Cloud opened his eyes again, there were snow lines racing over the PHS screen, and he hastily loosened his fingers. The leather of his gloves creaked. He slapped the flip shut and shoved it into his pocket.

Maybe later.

He'd forgotten how many times it'd been maybe later.

Hissing long and low, Cloud shoved his hands into his hair and scrubbed hard, shaking his head.

The sleek airship sat under the closed dome of the airbase, its sails tightly furled around tall masts. Personnel scuttled around it like a school of fish hovering in the wake of a shark.

He saw it from across the room. He'd already started forward, eyes wide, staring upwards. A bunch of ShinRa Security privates were hauling an anchor on board the ship, heaving at the thick chain. Beside it, scraping against it, another rope was straining, thinning and stretching where it dangled over the deck's edge.

There was a loud snap, a jumbled yell, and Cloud put on a burst of speed. The huge sandbag that had been hanging as ballast from one side of the ship thwapped into his palms, sending stinging shocks up his arms and deforming with the force of the impact. His back groaned as the bag started wobbling in his hands.

He grunted, dropping it from over his head and stepping back so that when he caught it again, he hugged it to his belly and shifted the weight into his braced legs. He let it fall again, this time slapping thickly to the concrete ground.

The infantryman he'd knocked aside sat on the floor, staring up at him. Cloud tried to put on a friendly smile, but the kid just glanced over at the side of the dome, where Robertsson still sat with a bored slant to his face and an ankle propped up over his other knee in the distance, and he turned back to Cloud with his mouth working soundlessly.

"Not hurt?" Cloud said.

The private blinked for a moment, and then shook his head widely. "Nossir."

Cloud looked up at the faces hanging over the rail edging the deck of the ship. He caught a few of the poorly concealed flinches.

"The hell were you idiots doing?" The sack listed at his feet, slowly tipping further on its side as its sand settled. "Quit fucking around and do your job properly."

There were scattered mumbles. He could have sworn a muddled "goddamn Soldier" emerged somewhere in the noise.

ShinRa Security members wore the dumbest shit he'd ever seen. The red lamps set into their helmets shone down at him like malevolent headlights on a runaway train. The men stared at him, unmoving.

"Well?" Cloud snapped.

Not that he was any better, with the way Soldier eyes turned reflective in low light.

Someone fumbled around for a second and started to let down a rope for the ballast.

There'd been some bad blood between Soldier and ShinRa Security for a while now. Ostensibly, they were the ones in charge of keeping the peace in Midgar. But with the way mako could be found everywhere these days, there were some situations that the unenhanced simply couldn't handle, and Soldier, being Special Ops, had the authority to override Security.

It  _was_  kind of a dick move, to be fair, given how much Security had invested in the city. Technically, they were a private military force with no public responsibilities, but ShinRa more or less owned Midgar by now, and no matter what else the company was, it protected its assets.

Robertsson was picking at a scuff on the side of his boot when Cloud got back to the crooked little row of chairs tucked near the elevators. He looked up when Cloud dropped down into the seat beside him, and a slow smirk crossed his face. "That one was pretty good," he said. "Barely saw you move."

Cloud snorted. "You oughta know."

The Second gave him a dirty look.

Robertsson had offered to spar when he'd come across Cloud doing drills by himself the first night, long after the gym on the sixty-fourth floor had emptied for lights out. The man had won one match, lost three, and then Cloud had misjudged a strike that sent Robertsson's weapons hurtling through the drywall and three inches of concrete, right about when he broke the Second's arm in three places. The magic had healed the man up pretty well, but there was still a stretch of shiny pink skin on the underside of his arm, blanching to a pale white colour whenever Robertsson moved it. Cloud had been restricted to the VR room by a glowering nurse after that. Robertsson only pissed her off more by refusing to wear the sling, and they'd beat a hasty retreat in the end when she'd started threatening them with syringes.

He looked down at a gloved hand, squeezing it into a slow fist. Soldiers tended to hate needles. Cloud was pretty damn eager to find out who the asshole was that decided the support staff should capitalize on this as leverage.

He pushed the memory of spiralling feathers away.

The VR room had a weird hollow sort of smell, just under the astringent fumes of the cleaner they used to mop up the patches of sweat and occasional blood that the Soldiers who got too enthusiastic left behind. It always started out faint, but after a couple of training programs, it would have soaked through Cloud's skin and embedded itself into the walls of his airway until he wanted nothing more than to go chase down a skunk. He figured it was something caused by the lasers they used to generate the projections, and Kunsel thought he was just batshit.

Maybe it was just the smell of being alone.

He remembered when it wasn't quiet. It snuck up on him often, little droplets of hope tickling his skin like some giant sprinkler was watering the restless Soldiers left behind. They rolled before they dried, leaving a damp, chilled streak of fear in their wake. The thoughts rebelled, sticky fingers snatching for purchase, when he tried to shove them back. This was stupid. The same whiny anxieties had been running around his head for days like chocobos galloping around a racetrack, following the same mindless path until their feet left permanent grooves in the track. Robertsson was a dick, but he was right. He couldn't accomplish anything by fussing.

The Soldier floor was filled with dead air these days, so he'd more or less had the VR room to himself for the day and a half he spent beating his muscle memory back into submission. The second evening, the Colonel who'd supervised the training regimen of his cadet corps had dragged him into the Officer's Mess and grilled him for details about Wutai. When Cloud had first seen Colonel Karrida, he'd thought the man was the oldest person he'd ever seen, hardened with age like teak. He'd heard that the Colonel had been overseeing the recruits since Sephiroth went through the program. The man had been kind enough to Cloud when he'd told him to shape up or ship out the time he'd been written up for being a mouthy pain in his drill sergeant's ass.

When he'd gotten back to the VR facility, he'd paused in front of the door, hand hovering over the lock release just as he noticed the figure inside through the tinted glass. He'd nearly walked away before he saw the long pale hair spilling out from the back of the sensory immersion helmet. He'd stopped, watching the General sit alone in the centre of the training floor with his back to the door, leaning back from his crossed legs and looking up at something only he could see. The man's shoulders had shifted jerkily, and he'd tucked an arm under his nape as he lay back.

There'd been a second, just the space of a couple of heartbeats, that it had been Angeal's back he saw, the First unreadable as he stared into the Wutai sky. The taste of damp grass and blood in the air had been so strong that it rasped against his tongue.

Cloud had clamped a hand hard over his mouth and slipped away from the closed door.

Kunsel had let him stay on his stumpy couch for the rest of that night while some sort of dry documentary about microscopic organisms, hovering right over the line between alive and dead, that lived in and purified the Lifestream played inobtrusively on the old tube TV the Second had. They sipped up old, worn out streams, chewed them up, and spat them back out crisp and new. Or something. He hadn't been paying much attention. He'd wondered briefly if they were swimming around his veins now, too.

Replacements, every-fucking-where he looked. ShinRa was big on replacements. Colonel Karrida had talked to him like he was a replacement, too.

Shut up shut _up_.

The elevator dinged over Cloud's shoulder, and he hopped to his feet when Lazard came through the doors, trailed by his secretary and a specialist kid with the wide-eyed stare of a new intern.

"Good morning, Strife. Robertsson."

"Director," Cloud greeted. He saw Robertsson snap a salute.

Lazard gave him a reserved smile. "At ease, Soldiers."

Cloud tipped back in his stance, and he waited while Lazard scanned the idling airship. There was a burst of laughter from the deck. The sandbag was gone, and Cloud could hear the low creaking of the mast beams straining against the ropes securing the sails. Figures were starting to file down the docking ladder and disperse toward the doors studding the clean grey walls. Cloud glanced at Lazard's back. The man's shoulders were relaxed and square, but he could see the way he was rubbing his thumb over the sides of his knuckles.

The Director was still watching the workers when he said quietly, "I'd like to apologize. I would greatly prefer to send more Second Class operatives with you." He made a short, abortive noise and jerked his wrist. "For that matter, I would prefer to send Sephiroth with you, but given the low probability of success of this mission, the President has placed priority on Midgar security. Director Heidegger has offered use of the Blackwings special strike team, but..."

Robertsson grunted dismissively. "To talk frankly, sir, they'd just get in the way."

Lazard turned then, a short laugh on his mouth. "I'm of the same opinion." He pressed his lips together, and suddenly, he looked tired. "Strife," he said, "as we've discussed, you have direct command over this operation. Communications will be down once you enter enemy territory because of altitude, even if we hadn't detected jammers in the area, so we won't be able to provide distance support." There were jumbled thumps of boots over the concrete floor as Thirds began lining up across from the row of chairs. "All of our attempts at negotiation with the rebels have met with hostility, so we can only surmise that you will encounter the same. As field command, I expect you to judge the risks as you see fit."

The helmets of the Thirds were thickly opaque in the low light, but the glow of mako eyes cut through the shaded material. Cloud surveyed the Soldiers, standing at poster-perfect attention and watching him intently, and Lazard stepped closer to him. Cloud met the Director's eyes.

"Strife," he said softly, "these men."

When the Director didn't continue, Cloud smothered a wince. There were about fifty billion different things he probably couldn't promise. He wished hard for Angeal's poker face. The Thirds were watching him like he was going to pull some miracle out of his ass, and damned if he was going to show doubt now, in front of the people ShinRa deemed expendable enough to send on this mission. Half of them looked like rookies, their armour still smooth and unworn.

Luxiere had already tried to make his not so subtle farewells. At least Kunsel had been within earshot at the time, and he'd been the one who'd laid the other Second flat with a fierce swing.

He'd never seen Kunsel so pissed. It had been kind of impressive, even when it had transferred over to him when he'd started chortling and couldn't stop.

A heavy ringing filled Cloud's ears, and unbidden, phantom blood splashed across the shiny new uniforms of the Thirds, filling the air with its metallic tang and bringing bile up to sting at the back of his palate. Ring ring. Riot in the house. Party in Wutai. He wrenched his eyes away.

"I'll watch out for them," he said. The words echoed in his head, swollen wavelengths banging into one side of his empty skull before another.

Lazard didn't respond for a moment, but then he smiled tightly. "Yes." He paused, frowning as if he had more to say. "Yes, do."

* * *

It never got old, flying.

The new airships Shinra was developing flew on metal-cased turbines linked to the main materia engines and hooked up with bundles of wires as thick as a man's waist to the wall of computers covering the Gravity construct core. The engineers had referred to it fondly as their brain the time Cloud had wandered into the bay while one was in the process of being serviced, parts laid out carefully in a ring and looking like a whale in the midst of exploding. The ships flew fast enough to leave a thunderous bang when they outstripped the speed of sound, but they roared continuously in the sky until it was either wear constant full-cover headphones or go deaf after about five minutes.

Shinra brought them out when they needed to flex some steroid muscle, and Cloud still remembered the time he and Angeal had perched on the cliff overlooking the bright golden haze of light from one of the major villages in Wutai. That high up, the people in the village were little more than specks of black, meeting, joining, and rebounding off each other in continuous chaotic motion. He'd been watching when they scattered, motes under a sharp gust of air, as the warning sounded. He'd plugged his ears to the shriek of the air raid sirens before getting flattened to the ground by the force of the ships streaking past overhead, dark, thin cylinders dropping from its hatches. The smoke from the shelling had been thick enough to block out the sky and cake the surface of Cloud's gums with black slime, but Angeal hadn't moved until the ships had long passed and the sound of the fire smothered the sirens and painted the horizon orange.

Angeal had looked at him like he'd been expecting something from Cloud afterward. Cloud hadn't had anything to say, the afterimage of the milling specks still painted in inverted colours over his retinas. The First had seemed satisfied, whatever he saw, then.

He'd figured it had been some kind of lesson, but he'd always sucked ass at guessing the plot. Maybe Angeal had had something to say.

Maybe it was "haha, loser."

He'd forgotten the sound of Angeal's voice as the weeks ground by, and so his mind helpfully supplied his own. The sound of his gleeful laughter chased him in his head as he ran. Well. Hard to top spiteful shit like that.

Saliva pooled, sour and hot, in his mouth, and Cloud spat over the side of the ship. It whipped away.

The ship humming through the sky under him was one of the older ones, warm wood polished smooth by hands, feet, and slipping winds. Careful varnish gleamed under Cloud's palm. He sat at the prow, on a thick guardrail hung with big signs that edged the open deck. The signs were inscribed with tall red letters: "Do not climb." The rail rumbled up against his thighs, turning his brains into froth, and he wiped sweaty palms against his uniform pants as he stared ahead into the sky.

The propellers sliced the air, but they were small, set at the base of the ship to provide directional nudges, and the ship really flew on the glowing hub in the control room, slowly spinning, suspended by a crest of thin bars. He'd gone in there, once. In addition to the standard Gravity and Barrier, it was set with locked materia that no one could name anymore, the magic within it ancient and carefully maintained. The hub had seemed almost sentient, glittering beads watching him carefully as it twirled, and Cloud had abruptly walked out of the room to the unsettled ache in his chest, somewhere between fear and remorse for treading where he was unwelcome.

His PHS buzzed, its vibrations amplified as it rattled from where it was wedged against the rail, and he dug it out of his back pocket.

It was that damn spam again. Some jackass using the pseudonym "Ninja Princess." Cloud hit the delete key, half hoping that it'd work this time. It didn't, and he growled low in his throat, stuffing the device back into a pouch.

"The fuck did they get my PHS number?"

"What," said an amused voice behind him. "Your fanclub?"

Cloud twisted around. He didn't recognize the Third under the helmet at first, until he snapped a salute and something twinkled in his ear.

Jordon grinned crookedly as he stepped closer.

"My... what?" Cloud said slowly.

"Fanclub. You know, all the high ranking Soldiers have them. I'm sure you've joined Angeal's, right? Or at least the General's. They send out all the dirt, whether it's true or not."

Oh. Cloud felt the tips of his ears start to heat up, and he slouched back onto his seat. "Maybe one or two," he muttered.

"I get mail from all of them," Jordon said, his tone murderously cheerful. "And I joined yours a couple of days back."

Cloud choked on a cough, and he ground a palm into an eye socket. "Don't tell me this kind of shit, you ass."

Jordon snickered. He pressed a hand on the knob of a post, and he vaulted the railing in a quick hop so that he stood on the triangle of wood that tilted up into the jibboom. It dipped gently under his weight before righting itself. The midday sky stretched ahead, shading from pale grey on the horizon to blue overlaying black overhead. Cloud squinted into sunlight reflecting up off the cloud cover below.

"Not airsick this time?" Jordon shouted over his shoulder, the words half lost in the wind.

Cloud furrowed his eyebrows. "I get airsick? Since when?"

Jordon craned his neck around, holding onto the rigging for balance when the ship bobbed. "What? Last time, after the funeral. You were talking about jumping off."

A wave of vertigo hit Cloud, along with an eyeball-squishing pressure in his head that made his temples clang.

Blackness. Something soft and hot squelching under his splayed fingers.

" _Ewwwww_! Mom! Cloud threw up!"

He clamped his eyes shut, hunching over to dig his grip into the guardrail under him. A memory? What kind of—

He was laughing, wind funnelling into his ears and dizzying heights swooping under his feet.

It felt like two different brains were trying to squeeze into the space within his skull, pushing at shoving at each other until all the lobes started bulging outward, scraping at the bone, tight until it was threatening to burst.

A warm hand on his forehead; a warm laugh. "You'll be okay."

The thundering sound was his pulse, stampeding hooves kicking at his soft-bits as they passed.

The back of his hand, creases in his glove. Stretched out to touch. Spin, spin.

A keening noise forced its way past his tight teeth, and he bowed under the crush of a giant foot stomping down on him, cracking his bones and making soup out of his guts.

"Sir? Strife?"

_"I told you you'd be okay."_

It eased and vanished so quickly Cloud nearly overbalanced. A residual pound, something malignant hopping up and down on the back of his neck, was light against pain-deadened nerves. He ignored the voice.

"You alright, sir?"

Sounded like a smug bastard, anyway.

Cloud shook his head and pulled the edges of his mouth up into a quick smile. "Fine, sorry. I don't usually get motion sick, so it was probably just the goddamn loud parade and the funeral that got me last time."

He thought he heard Jordon make a vaguely affirmative noise when he looked down at his shuddering arms, elbows locked tight and knuckles white against the wood. There were indents under his nails.

Fuck. What the fuck was that? His hands were still shaking.

"What are you looking at?"

Cloud flinched, and he glanced up. The Third had turned back to the horizon, segmented by the billowing lines of the jib sails. He blinked, yanking his thoughts straight. "Uh, nothing," Cloud said. When the Third swung around and looked at him for a long moment, he shrugged. "Just sky."

"I can keep watch, sir."

"Quit calling me that, Jordon." Cloud shifted his weight on the beam. The edge was starting to dig into his ass. He flapped a hand. "I'm not keeping watch. Not much to see, this high. Birds don't even come up here without a good reason." Jordon hadn't moved. "Just... waiting."

More waiting. Again with the shitty waiting. If he had wings, too—

Cloud yanked on the thought so hard the jolt ripped his breath away.

Jordon's mouth suddenly pulled tight, parting in harsh grimace. "Strife, fuck, sir, can I ask something?" he said, something like grief at the edges of his voice. "Your honest thoughts?"

Alarmed, Cloud's eyes flickered away from the man to the empty atmosphere, the smooth wood of the ship, before returning warily. "What?" he said, carefully.

"Are they still alive?"

The wind scoured his eardrums so that he had to strain to hear the words. They hit him like a punch to the gut, anyway, and every single fucking doubt he'd been trying to hold at bay came gushing back into his head. He swayed with the force of the howls. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. It didn't work the second try, either, and Jordon didn't move the entire time, staring at him through the curve of his helmet while his fists clenched repeatedly at his sides. Under the dry cotton stuffing Cloud's mouth, fear dipped frozen fingers down his gullet.

They could be waiting, too, at the other end of the flight.

"The preliminary data says the odds aren't good," Cloud said finally. The sound echoed a bit, as if it was coming from a distance. "And even if they are alive, there's a good chance that they're not in any condition to come back."

Wutai wouldn't bury them, not with fancy clanking machines like the ones sitting under the shiny stone that held their names. Skulls grinned up at Cloud, edging the brown precipices he remembered in neat little rows, picked clean by carrion birds.

"But what about—"

Cloud dropped his head, expelling his breath sharply through tense teeth and shutting his eyes. "But fuck if I can't seem to stop  _hoping_."

Evans had helped him and Travers hijack the VR equipment once, and the three Seconds had plugged themselves into a First Class training track. It had turned out to rank pretty fucking high on the list of dumbshit things he'd ever done. He remembered Travers's voice in the end, screaming at him to get up. Travers was worse than a cockroach. The harder he was stomped, the more he scuttled around.

Then again, he'd never known Evans to pick a fight he couldn't win. Or Angeal to murder an unarmed woman.

He'd thought maybe he'd have gotten used to it a bit more, every time he was wrong.

Jordon made a ragged sound, and Cloud looked up to see that he'd pulled off his helmet and was scrubbing a hand over his eyes. His bright hair whipped around his face, sticking to the glisten of a couple of tear tracks that wound over his cheeks.

Cloud gnawed on the inside of his lip, figuring this was something private and he should probably butt the fuck out, but Jordon just stood there, as if he'd forgotten his audience. The man sucked noisily at the air, making a fantastically inelegant honk as he sniffed in his snot. Cloud's eyes dropped away from the Third again, watching the slow weave of one of the sails hanging from the stay over his shoulder. He cleared his throat.

He hadn't been able to cry for years, ever since he figured out that the kids back home would eventually get bored and wander off if he kept his mouth shut. It was better being the creepy weirdo kid. It had turned into him picking the fights and the other kids running before too long, because he could, and his mother had just looked at him with tired eyes after.

Just another defect.

He cleared his throat again. "Who'd you lose?" he said. It sounded awkward as hell.

"My lover," Jordon said, before hesitating. "We were with the General during the last Wutai campaign. I came back. He didn't."

"Oh," Cloud said, and he pressed his mouth shut. He scanned the cloud cover again, heat rising up his neck and overpowering the sunlight baking the back of his head.

Jordon sighed harshly, his hand rubbing hard at his face a final time before he hunched his shoulders up to his ears. "Shit, sorry, sir. I shouldn't be getting personal affairs involved with missions. It's not like I don't... We were in the same squad as Tiny—Hoffe—you know, sir. I know he's not the only one we lost, you know, it's just that—"

"Quit that," Cloud interrupted. "You don't need to apologize."

"Sorry, sir." Jordon mumbled.

"You can quit that shit, too."

The Third snorted, half turning away to thumb the corner of his eye. "It's alright for you to say. I'm the one who'd get ass-ploughed for being disrespectful in front of a superior officer."

Cloud grinned, shrugging. "Not my problem, then, is it?"

Jordon laughed again, a bit muffled as he picked at his gloves. He was still scratching at the fraying seam when he said, "Why'd you take this one?"

What? "Huh?"

Jordon ripped out a loose thread. "The mission. Why'd you take it?"

Cloud stared. Individually, the words were familiar, their neat dictionary entries parading through the blank greyness behind his eyes. Together, nothing. He frowned down at his twisted fingers. "Didn't think about it," he said slowly.

"I heard you volunteered. I mean, you know my reasons, and some of the other guys are too green to know better, but..." Jordon's mouth tightened, and he dug his hands into his pockets. "They don't think we're going to come back."

One of Cloud's heels scuffed against the deck, beating a rapid tap tap thump. He pressed his palms together, and he squeezed hard. "I didn't think about it. Nothing to think about. We don't leave Soldiers behind. We don't."

His voice shook in his ears, sullen and quiet. Fucking bitter.

Cloud closed his eyes and breathed. "This is about the only family I've got, anyway," he said.

In the silence, he looked up to see a lopsided smile cross Jordon's face, and he scowled quickly. "Shit. You tell Robertsson or anyone I said this, and I'll gut you." His face was glowing by then, hot enough to cook a full course meal.

Jordon snickered as he turned back to the sky ahead.

"I'm serious."

Jordon didn't respond but for a briefly puzzled hum before leaning forward to flatten himself against the bowsprit.

Cloud sat up straight, stretching to peer over the Third's shoulder. "What?" he said sharply.

"I thought you said birds don't fly this high," Jordon bellowed, squinting into the glare of reflected light.

Cloud saw it, then, just a muddy speck that looked like it was more wingspread than bird. He pushed himself to his feet, and he shook out the buzz of blood rushing back out to his extremities. He shrugged, tipping forward to look over the prow. "I said I usually don't see them this high. It's fine. It's just a bird. It'll probably ignore us."

"Looks like it's just hovering."

Cloud dragged his memory for Wutai birds. It came up blank. "I don't know. Shouldn't be," he said, frowning. "It'd be struggling with the air currents. It's probably soaring." He remembered the stumpy-looking falcons that roosted on Mt. Nibel, carving through the sky with lazy tips of their spread wings before stooping with blinding speed.

"It's getting a bit bigger," Jordon said.

"Right." Cloud pulled up a shoulder again, and he turned to climb back over the rail. "It's fine. It should pass us soon."

"Strife!" Jordon said urgently.

"What? What now?"

"It's getting really fucking big!"

The bird screamed, then, the cry not so much a sound as a solid wall of sensation, the pressure driving through Cloud's torso, ripping open his eardrums, and causing every muscle in his body to seize up. Cloud whirled around, and he looked up into a sharply hooked beak surrounded by a wingspread longer than the ship was wide. Dull, mottled brown wings flapped, keeping the bird at level with the ship, and Cloud leaned hard into the blast of air that tried to rip his boots off the ground.

"Is it  _attacking_  us?" Jordon yelled.

The bird screamed again, and Cloud saw it rear back.

"Shit! Look out!" He reached out and twisted his fingers into the Third's collar, ignoring the choking noise Jordon made as he yanked the man off his feet and back over the railing.

The bird's beak scythed downward, snapping the bowsprit in a cacophony of crunching, splintering wood. Chains rattled as they came unwound, and rigging made high pitched twangs as the ropes slingshotted off to slap into their attached masts.

"How'd we piss it off this bad?" Jordon croaked, backpedalling clumsily to keep up with Cloud's arm barred across his chest.

"Maybe it hates ships!" Cloud shouted, watching the small, domed head twist from one side to the other to train both its black beady eyes on them. "Hell, maybe it wants to mate with the ship! I don't fucking know!"

"Fuck! It's coming again!"

With a flap of its monstrous wings, the bird had climbed up high into the sky. It tipped forward, beginning to tuck its wings in for a dive. With heart-scoring clarity, Cloud realized that this one would cleave the airship in half. He wrenched his sword off his back, running blind fingers over the materia slots. The beads pressed smoothly into his fingertips. Regen. Osmose. High level crud that had made him grin stupidly for days after the fusion, but utterly fucking useless in the face of a huge apeshit bird. The last materia buzzed under his hand, and his knuckles tightened. Mastered Thundara.

He poured magic into it. It seethed against his damp palm, spitting and sparking long arcs of electricity up his wrist until his hand felt charred. His jaw creaked, his teeth compressing to flint chips, and he shoved more energy into the incandescent shell.

When the magic ripped free, the recoil bit back at his fingers and made his eyes blur. He squinted until he saw nothing but a sliver, and his brains felt like they were oozing out of his ears as he wrestled for control. The waterfall of bolts smashed down onto the bird's back, piercing its hollow bones and tearing through its breast.

It screamed, spiralling into a tumble, and the smell of scorched feathers blanketed the ship.

Jordon gagged beside Cloud, falling to a knee. They stared up as the bird began to crumple in on itself, its torn feathers outlined sharply against the blue.

It shrieked again, and with a thump like oxygen being introduced to a blistering room filled with dust, it spread its broken wings and  _blazed_.

Cloud couldn't move, couldn't breathe. The bird reared, wings of twisting fire spread wide, boiling the sky and searing his eyes. He couldn't hear the crackle of flames, blue edged with yellow-white. The plasma danced, its light casting long black shadows on the deck, and the shape of the firebird etched itself into space before it flashed out, leaving glowing afterimages and a thin trail of ash that whipped away into the jet stream.

Cloud stood still, listening to the clinks of bubbled varnish cooling at his feet. The protrusions cracked under the chill, brittle pops ejecting clear, edged splinters.

Jordon made a strangled sound, and he twisted to face Cloud. "Was that..." His mouth worked on after his voice faded.

Cloud looked at the Third. Nothing but a hoarse grunt came out of his throat.

"I thought they were immortal!"

Cloud turned back to the sky. It was empty. Not even a trace of ash was left. The scent of burnt feathers still clung to his stinging eyes, but even that was fading.

"I think," he said quietly and paused, tracing the horizon. "I think they're just birds."

* * *

Cloud squatted down behind the lichen-crusted husk of a fallen tree, the damp teeth of its bark digging into his fingers. He raised a hand over his shoulder, and he heard muted rustles as just over a dozen Soldiers dropped to their haunches at his back.

"Not much of a welcoming committee," Robertsson rasped by his ear. "Think they weren't expecting us?"

The limping airship had dropped out of sight long ago, and night had fallen while Cloud pushed the team fast and hard over land. Stifled pants sounded behind him. They hadn't complained. "Doubtful," Cloud said. "This stinks of a trap." When he wrapped his right hand around his other wrist, he could feel the chaotic pound of his pulse. His chest was tight enough that it hurt to draw breath. He ignored it.

Starlight glittered overhead, chasing silver streams over the edges of flat leaves sitting against dark bark. Nothing moved, the quiet yawning until Cloud thought he could hear the forest breathe. Under the peace spread in front of him, somewhere, blood soaked through the earth. Cloud narrowed his eyes.

He tilted his head, and he eyed the stringy lines of a small Soldier Third's limbs. The guy barely looked old enough to have left his mother's apron strings.

"What's your name?"

The Third struggled visibly to contain a beam. "Timms, sir!"

"Are you fast, Timms?"

"Fastest in my battalion, sir!"

Cloud suppressed a wince, flattening his wooden cheeks. "I need a scout, Timms. Run. Keep quiet. Locate any guards or patrols. Do not engage them under any circumstances, and if they see you and come after you, sing the fuck out and bring them to me. Got it?"

Timms saluted hard, his arm clicking like he'd thrown out his elbow. "If they see me, sir, they'd hear me back in Midgar!"

A streak of white pain.

_"Are you sure, Spike? Sounds risky."_

Cloud's teeth creaked with the strain of compressing his snarl to a tightening of his eyes. Fuck. Fuck  _off_.

It didn't respond.

"Good. Be careful."

The Third darted away. The little idiot sounded like a crippled elephant crashing through the brush. Cloud scanned the waiting Soldiers. "The rest of you, loose spider formation," he said, and he pointed at Jordon, a Rocket Town man named Forenz, and a thick Third he didn't know with streaks of premature grey clumping in his hair. "You three form the hub. Others, spread. Robertsson and I will walk the web. You see anything, you signal with your short flares, collapse in, and pull the rest of the line in. We're going to take this forest."

Cloud watched the sharp nods before the Soldiers melted into the dark.

Got any smartass comments on this one? He flung the words at the inside of his head.

Nothing.

He didn't have time for this shit.

When Cloud ducked under a low branch and started picking his way over thick roots, Robertsson followed him. The Second didn't say anything until the trees swallowed the sound of footsteps.

"He's gonna lead them right to us," Robertsson said, a twist to his mouth.

Cloud shot the man a short grin. "I'm counting on it."

Robertsson laughed, a quick bark. He had one of his daggers in his hand, and he shrugged a shoulder and spun the blade sharply when Cloud frowned at him. "Cold, Strife. I'm actually kind of impressed. Sacrifice the one? Didn't think you had the balls."

Cloud growled, clenched his hand around the buckle of his sword's harness, and the urge to put his fist through Robertsson's teeth faded slowly."I'm not sacrificing anyone, you bastard. I've got a bead on him. Short distance transmissions are still good now that we've crossed the scramble zone. Why did you think we're going this way?"

The Second flipped open his PHS, squinted down at the screen for a moment, and his face contorted derisively. "You didn't tell me I was on the babysitting shift," Robertsson grumbled.

"Bitch all you want, but we're not leaving anyone behind," Cloud snapped.

"That what it says on your Chocobo Scout badge?"

The man only smirked when Cloud shot him a nasty look.

He waited until Cloud had pushed past him, upping the pace in response to a vindictive spike, before he muttered to himself, "Kid's turned me into a fucking Chocobo Scout, too."

Cloud pretended not to hear that one.

They walked, the grass crinkling under their boots.

Waiting again. Cloud had overheard some of the officers in the Regs say once that war was nothing but a long series of waiting interspersed with short periods of dying. Then the assholes had laughed.

Something was chirping in the dark. The incessant noise ran its cheesegrater palms over the bundles of nerves in the sides of Cloud's neck, and he fought to keep his fists loose. When Cloud stopped in mid-stride, cocking his head, Robertsson's hands went to his daggers. Cloud heard it again, a patch of silence, dead still against the living trees. Under the pale haze of the night sky, a darker shadow rested. He tucked his hands behind his back, tapping the back of his fingers against his palm before flicking through Soldier hand sign. Robertsson's mako eyes dimmed briefly in acknowledgement, and the Second began to circle around.

There were two Wutai privates perched under a camouflaged lean-to, one scanning the trees, and the other picking at the lid of a jar of something he was trying to open. Robertsson thumped to the ground behind the ninja peering down at the jar and brought one dagger up to the man's neck and the other flat to his back, a glittering necklace poised to shrink. The other ninja shot to his feet, raising his gun lance.

Cloud brought his sword down on the ninja's weapon in a two-handed cleave, and it crunched as it slapped to the ground. He twisted sharply, the jagged remains of the gun lance snagging on his uniform as the man lunged out at him, and he turned his blade wide and flat to the ground as he thrust forward.

The ninja's head hit the earth with a dense thunk, tipping and wobbling a bit until it lay half-propped against a panel of the outpost's wall. The body folded as it fell.

Cloud glanced at Robertsson. The Second was wiping his daggers carefully over the other ninja's clothes. There was wide gash in the front of the ninja's neck, and another across the back, his neatly severed spine smeared with spongy marrow on white. Blood glistened briefly before it sank under the grass.

Cloud's sword hummed when he swung off the rivulets of fluids. The biting smell of urine welled into the air, and Cloud tipped the headless body over onto its front with his boot. No good, the stain was on both sides.

"What are you doing?"

Cloud's foot froze for a second, hovering over the corpse. The dead guy had smudged. "Nothing."

He'd probably paused too long on that one.

Robertsson didn't say anything else, at least.

The jar had smashed on the ground, spilling its contents. A ring of glass had bloomed out as it splintered. He waited while Robertsson loped over to a patch of creepers and scraped something crumbly off his boot. The long daggers slid slickly into their sheaths.

* * *

"You'd think this place'd be crawling with Wutai."

They'd met the Soldier on point position soon after. The Third gave a quick salute when he saw them, and Cloud returned a terse nod.

They hadn't encountered any more guards as they headed toward the next point, and Robertsson had started looking more and more aggravated.

Cloud grunted softly. He opened his eyes wide for a moment to take advantage of every stray photon available through the thick branches brushing his shoulders. Out of the corner of his vision, he saw Robertsson doing the same. The man's eyes gleamed, flat reflective discs like a cat's. He shuttered his eyes again. "Disappointed?" Cloud said.

"Fuckin' suspicious is it."

Cloud looked up at the patches of sky. The stars hooted and jeered. "No shit."

Robertsson used a toe to pry a fallen sapling out of his way. Black tumours distended from its gnawed surface. "You ever been here before?" he asked.

Cloud pulled his face into a slow frown. He paused for a moment, and he pivoted on his heel.

For a moment, he heard nothing but the sound of his breath and the crackle of twigs as he pushed his way deeper into the undergrowth. Then Robertsson's quick steps crunched behind him.

"Eh," the other Second hissed. "Strife, you're heading off the web."

Cloud ignored the man. The cloying scent of decay grew stronger, sweet enough to turn his stomach and foul enough to make him gag. He nearly didn't see it until he'd stepped into the half-liquefied mess, hidden under fat, waxy leaves that bobbed on bristled stems. Cloud snatched at a low branch, its knobs digging into his palm as he yanked on it to slow his momentum. One boot trod into something gummy, knocking part of it loose and exposing the glisten of round maggots twining through the rot. The stink wormed its way through his nostrils.

Under his feet, something small and hairy squeaked staccato and shrill as it scuttled away.

Robertsson made a quiet sound in his throat behind him. "Is it Soldier?"

Cloud twisted his shoulder, halfway between a shrug and a shake. Something glittered under the slime, and he crouched, sitting back on his heels to reach for a wizened stick.

It took several tries before he managed to hook the blackened chain. Something had been eating the palm it rested under, neat little bite marks lining the bloodless grey tissue. Putrid flesh parted with reluctant sucking sounds as he dragged the metal out. Bloated, sausage-like fingers rolled and tore, releasing a gush of fluids onto the tangled links. A hiss, and a curl of smoke rose up. Cloud leaned back abruptly.

The tag on the chain was paper-thin, eaten through like torn cheesecloth. Anything etched into the metal was long gone, the edges soaked through with faint mako green.

Cloud pushed back the leaves again. The reluctant moonlight sharpened the shadows and lined the shape of the arm stretched out of the hollow. Thin lines, tooth marks, raced across the exposed bone. Grime-matted hair lay in clumps, a thin rind of scalp still draped over the roots.

His stomach turned violently, and he rocked back on his heels, reaching out blinding to grab at the branches and keep himself from pitching forward.

Get a goddamn grip.

He swallowed hard.

Cloud pressed an arm over his mouth and nose, but it did nothing to drown out the stench. "Motherfucker..." he whispered.

"Looks like the poor sunovabitch just  _melted_ ," Robertsson said. He reached out to shove away a few more fronds. "What kind of weapon does this shit?"

Cloud surged to his feet, shuffling through a couple of clumsy hops before he caught his balance. "Fuck, I sent Timms out alone. Fucking  _hell._  The kid better be in range." He patted his back pockets before shoving his hands into the ones at his sides. His fingers were numb when he yanked out his PHS. It clattered in his hands, and he snatched at it as it started to slip.

Robertsson let the leaves snap back into place, and he frowned. "The hell you so worked up about?"

Cloud's breath hissed sharply through his teeth. " _Worked up_? We just found Mister Raspberry Snowcone over here, and you're asking me why I'm  _worked the fuck up_?" He grimaced, and he shook his head. "I'm calling him back. We'll regroup and move as a unit."

The other Soldier reached out and yanked on a handful of thin branches to heave himself to his feet. They whipped, arcing back into place. "And broadcast our position to every Wutai bastard in town?"

"If I have to," Cloud snarled. "It might be hard for you to understand, but there are  _some_  things more important than—"

"Check his position," Robertsson interrupted, smacking the back of his hand into Cloud's PHS and sneering while he fumbled with it. "Is he moving?" he said, exaggerated and slow.

Cloud stared down at his screen, and his jaw creaked tight. "Yes," he said, watching the blinking dot, scratching with bad reception.

"There you go."

Cloud scanned the silent map, his thumb scraping over the scroll, harder than necessary. He felt Robertsson's scrutiny, but he didn't look up. The asswipe would be waiting a long time if he was looking for an apology.

He could feel the nails of his other hand digging into his palm. He took a whistling breath. Fine. It was fine. The body was at least a week old. Shit shit shit, calm down. He pressed his eyes shut.

_"You'll be fine."_

Shut the  _fuck_  up!

Robertsson clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, and he sighed gustily. When he spoke, his voice was heavy, his Midgar accent thick and cumbersome. "Shiva's frozen tits, Strife, you're goin' to have to make some spectacularly shitty decisions sometime. What's important one time isn't good enough for another time. Your Chocobo Scout badge ain't gonna be much good, then."

Cloud's hand stilled, and slowly, his fingers loosened around the brushed metal frame in his palm. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back. His vertebrae creaked. The air felt damp in his mouth, but his throat still scratched, desert dry. "No, I haven't been," he said shortly.

"Eh?" Robertsson stared at him.

"You asked if I'd been here before," Cloud said, flapping the fingers of one hand. Focus. It was better than trying to push Robertsson's head through a tree. "The answer's no. The closest I came was when Angeal and I worked backup for Intelligence when they set up a station on the other side of the valley. We didn't come down here." His mouth twisted drily. "Wouldn't have helped if I did. I can't tell one goddamn tree from another."

When the other Soldier's eyes narrowed, flickers of confusion colouring the mako, cold dripped its way down Cloud's spine. Familiarity gnawed at his gut.

"Who?"

Cloud's pulse roared in his ears. He jerked his head to the side and back again. "What do you mean 'who?'" The brittle words clicked, frozen to his tongue.

"Fuck, Strife, you're not making sense."

Robertsson looked at him, his scowl half exasperated and half impatient, and when something snapped somewhere inside of Cloud and filled him with hot, raspy irritation, he figured he was entitled. He spun, fully facing the Second. "What the ball-blazing  _fuck_  is going on here? This is the second time someone's asked me who Angeal was. What is this bullshit? Do we start erasing Soldiers from the records when they go AWOL or some shit like that? You telling me you don't  _remember_?"

He couldn't shout. Not here. Shut up.

Ringing filled his ears, bright sharp specks buzzing in the edges of his vision. An invisible hand punched through his ribcage, pried apart the bones, and clenched hard around the bulging walls of his heart. Cloud wheezed, digging his fingers into his chest. His back thumped against bark, its rough nails clawing up his skin when he sagged.

There was a blur, static and motion through the sliver of his sight. A rough voice. "The hell's wrong with you?"

Cloud tried to choke back the laugh. It bubbled, boiling over through his nose in a series of short, honking sniggers. He gasped for breath. "With me? You think something's wrong with me?" He clamped a hand over his mouth for a moment. It shook harder than the laughter warranted. "Half of ShinRa thinks we're gonna die out here. Angeal, fucking  _Angeal_ 's a traitor, and the Ghost of Soldier Past is getting its rocks off on haunting me or something. It  _talks_  to me. Gives bullshit peppy cocksucker advice! And now you people tell me I see things I don't really see and I know things I don't really know and I should fucking  _hope_  I'm unhinged because I'm _fucked_ six ways to Sunday if this is  _normal!"_

His panting echoed in the spaces between the trees.

"You done?"

Cloud shut his eyes, letting his head fall back with a thick clunk. He chuckled breathlessly. "Never done. Asshole in my head hasn't piped up, yet."

He could see Robertsson's eyes twitch back and forth in his peripheral vision. The man shuffled, looking truly uncomfortable for the first time since Cloud had gotten within sniping distance. The novelty caused a fresh burst of giggles to seize up his vocal cords, and he muffled it with the back of his hand. The taste of sweat stung his tongue as he bit down. In front of him, Robertsson tched and stuffed his hands into his pockets.

"No one feels right about Angeal, you know," the Second muttered, looking away.

Cloud snorted.

Robertsson shrugged a tense shoulder. "All Soldiers got their problems." He met Cloud's eyes for just a second before shifting his gaze away again. Shrugging once more, he gestured at his scar. The shiny tissue poured down the side of his face, and Cloud took the opportunity to really study it. The wan light made the thick ridges seem even more pronounced, cavernous black shadows edging the gleam. It didn't move much when Robertsson's mouth twitched up for a moment. "Try not to think too much about it," the Second said.

Saliva pooled in Cloud's mouth, filming the inside of his cheeks and frothing around his teeth. It made a gurgling noise when he swallowed. "It's fucking weird having you trying to be encouraging."

Robertsson nearly smiled again. "Don't get used to it."

"Absolute shit advice, though."

"Fuck off, Strife."

He was still snickering when there was a whistle, and a sucking pop sounded a moment before Cloud saw light glimmer through the dense tangle of branches over his head. He pushed himself away from the tree at his back, and he made an awkward little crab hop when he put his foot down in the hollow at its roots and felt something squish.

Anticipation poured through his limbs. There were squawks, the crash of footsteps, and a bellow that warbled. Cloud spun, tilting his face up to the sky. Another flare of red flushed out the stars, streaking pale ash in its wake. It was farther than Cloud had anticipated.

He grunted, weaving around tangled trunks and ducking into a sprint. His boots thudded, jarring all the way up his bones. "Robertsson, move your ass!"

"How many fucking legs do you think I have?" Robertsson shouted from somewhere behind him.

"I'm going ahead, then!" Cloud hurdled a low-lying branch. Robertsson's answering yell was lost in the howl of moving air and the pump of blood through his veins. Shapes shot by, nothing but murky blurs in half-hearted light. A sting snapped briefly at the underside of his jaw, and a prickle of heat touched him in passing a split second before it whipped away.

He nearly missed Timms.

Cloud turned his head in time to see the Third whirl toward him when he galloped past, catching a hand on a jutting branch and using it to swing himself over a patch of brambles. The wide mako eyes were flickering beacons in the shadows.

"Sir!" The sound was faint under the hissing of flares.

Cloud windmilled, ploughing his heels into the ground and kicking up a skid trail of grit that speckled his skin like hail.

"Hey, sir!" Timms shouted again. The Soldier's face fell slack when he saw Cloud bearing down on him. He raised his arms defensively, taking a step back, but Cloud had already reached out and caught two good fistfuls of the Third's mud-smeared uniform. Timms croaked loudly when Cloud lifted him up off his feet, and his hands clamped down reflexively on gloved wrists. His boots thumped unsteadily into the ground as he tried to hop along with the pace.

"Sir, behind!"

"I know!"

Cloud charged through the dense growth, ignoring the clawed fingers of the trees snatching at his skin and clothes. When he crashed through the tree line and tripped into the clearing, Jordon spun around, swinging his sword up a hair before he shouted in alarm and pulled back. He reeled, arms flinging out and legs tangling when Cloud shoved Timms off and into the other Thirds.

Cloud had already ripped his broadsword free of its scabbard halfway through his pivot. He tipped the point down, a raspy scrape echoing down the blade as it snagged under a ninja's gun lance and slapped upward. Muddled yells jostled for position in his ears, indecipherable. Cloud stepped into the opening, bringing his sword up in a wide sweep.

Blood sprayed, slapping thickly against his face and arms. The heat stung.

Gunfire rattled, and Cloud snapped his sword up. He braced the flat of the blade against the back of his fist, feeling his arms judder with every hollow ping of a bullet's ricochet. The last one glanced off the metal and sawed its way into the ground just as Cloud used the recoil to spin into a crouch. Flipping his sword into a back-handed grip as he whirled past, he swung.

Clanking, the ninja's helmet bounced.

There were shouts at his back, and the crinkle of gathered magic prodded at his ears, accompanied by the tin can smell of ice condensing out of the air.

Cloud saw Timms hunched over his blazing bracer, the materia light etching his crooked nose into sharp relief. Shards bloomed, driving into a ninja's arm and sheathing his weapon in ice. As the man doubled over and screamed, another Third stepped up behind him, dragging him down by his collar and raising a fist. With a damp crunch, the ninja's skull caved.

Timms backpedalled abruptly, catching a descending gun lance in the crook where the blade of his sword met the hilt. Twisting to the side, the Third closed his fist around the shaft of the rebel's weapon a moment before he disengaged, ducked, and drove his sword through the man's belly.

Wutai ringed them, grim faces set under caked on grime.

It was then that fire roared through their ranks, and Cloud saw the confusion drag across their faces as they started to turn, abortive spins taking them one direction after another. He saw the realization distort their mouths when the circle of Soldiers pinched closed around them, the net trawled in by the hiss and pop of flares.

Robertsson snarled, scar livid in the light of the flames.

One of the ninja brandished his weapon with a scream, a muffled torrent of words that spurred a wave of roars and rattles of lances. The Wutai language always sounded like it bristled with short, sharp thorns of syllables. Cloud danced back out of range, adjusting his grip on his sword before taking his stance again.

He bared his teeth in a grin, and he charged.

* * *

Cloud wiped the back of his knuckles across his mouth, grimacing when they left a streak of clotting blood up his cheek. Isolated patches of fire still lapped at the damp grass and slow embers still breathed under the charred shells of blackened Wutai armour. Behind him, he could hear Timms heaving from where the Third crouched under a tree, short sobs mingling with the retching.

Cloud lifted his boots high to step over a man's torso. It humped oddly, a disjointed slit glistening moistly, almost neatly bisected. He remembered that one. Caught the man on the upswing.

Some of the Thirds were starting to drag the bodies into a clump. Flat, glistening grass trails radiated through the clearing, like a giant hand had gone paint-happy with a giant brush. Bark bristled under his palm as he pressed a hand to a tree for balance. He leaned into it for a moment, scraping his shallow breaths smooth, and he pushed away to stand.

Timms's shoulders jerked like they were tugged on too-tight marionette strings when he pressed a hand onto the Third's pauldron. The guy scrubbed a forearm over his nose and eyes, and he turned his head to squint up at Cloud.

Cloud considered telling him that it got easier with time, when the shock of the first job, first kill faded, and that the smell would barely register. The words piled into a chunky bolus in his throat, throttling his vocal cords. He suppressed a wince. Angeal had made it seem so easy.

"Good job," Cloud said quietly, instead.

Timms tried to smile. Cloud hesitated, and he patted the clumsy tips of his fingers over the Third's shoulder again.

It felt stupid the second time, too.

There was a spray of blood across the Third's forehead. He wasn't sure if he should point it out.

He glanced over the sloppy ring of Soldiers, waiting as murmured conversations broke off, and glowing eyes snapped around to fix on him.

It had been too easy. Wutai had known they were coming. There should have been a hell of a lot more troops. There wasn't a scratch on any of them. He'd recognized the tight stretch on the faces of the Wutai who'd screamed at him. He knew the tone, if not the words. The ninja hadn't expected to live.

Fuck fucking  _fuck_.

It was all going wrong. His head swirled like foam was being funnelled in through his ears and forcing its way into the cracks in his brain.

They had no fucking clue what to expect, but hell, he couldn't say that either, could he?

He hooked his fingers into his pockets so that they couldn't see them clench.

Shut off. Do it right.

Residual magic painted a pale haze in the air and stung at Cloud's throat.

"Good," he said again. His voice was level. "We shouldn't have any Wutai at our backs now, but we have to hit the base hard and do it fast."

There were scattered nods. Jordon swept the trees with his eyes before he frowned. "Where's the base, sir?"

Robertsson grunted, looking up from where he was picking over the materia he'd found in the ninja commander's gear. "It's underground, Soldier," he snapped. A support materia glimmered in his hand, the blue washed out by the dim flow of moonlight. Robertsson rolled the orb between his fingers. His lips curled in an abrupt sneer before he tossed the materia onto the ground and stood, wiping a darker smear over his uniform pants.

Cloud shifted, adjusting the weight of his sword on his back. His muscles were locking up, stiff joints threatening to cramp. Timms was standing near the back, staring vacantly into the dark. Cloud cleared his throat, and the Third's eyes snapped to focus. His back straightened when he noticed Cloud's attention, and he saluted slowly before tugging his helmet back over his limp hair.

Cloud nodded, surveying the men again. "Get yourselves cleaned up as much as you can. We blitz in five minutes."

* * *

TBC


	8. Safety net strings 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fuck fuck fuck dying he wasn't gonna couldn't fucking not gonna die here up up UP—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The disclaimer: All recognizable characters and settings are property of Square Enix. No profit is being sought from the writing of this fanfiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
> 
> The rant: Effing hell, I'm sorry. A month and a half really wasn't supposed to go by between updates. I must have rewritten the majority of this thing at least three times in an effort to get it to behave. For a while, I honestly wanted to kill off everyone and just get it over with. I mean, isn't that the point of generating all these OCs? So that I could have characters to kill off without repercussion?
> 
> Guh. Well, it's over with. Here's hoping the next chapter isn't nearly as painful.
> 
> Did not manage to get all the way through this goddamn mission again, but oh well. My first outline had this fic at five or six chapters, so I've pretty much given up on it following the plan.
> 
> The beta: Huge thanks go to Poisonberries for sticking it out with me through whatever you'd call the literary equivalents of murderous rampages.
> 
> Jan 2015: The edit continues. Made some changes to make it more obvious that I was messing around with Reunion theory.

**Part 7B.**  Safety net strings

 

 

The hallway forked, the damp cracking the walls at their bases. The scent of rot blanketed the air.

Cloud flared his eyes, peering down one branch and then the other. The gritty green of mako was barely enough to see by. It illuminated the dark shapes of bulbs set just below the ceiling, each one cracked or burnt out. It was hard to tell. There was a tortured groan, and dust trailed from a thin fissure in the ceiling. Whatever pumping system the Wutai radicals had used to keep out the groundwater had failed, and the foundations were slowly giving. The place would probably collapse within another month.

Down the right fork, a last bulb strobed obstinately, its faint buzzing barely audible under stifled rasps of breath from the cluster of Soldiers.

The base reeked of neglect. It stung at his nose and flooded his mouth with chalk dust until Cloud figured that he didn't need to see the sagging overhead to know the shithole was thoroughly abandoned. The last time it had been this bad, he'd wandered into the Manor years after ShinRa had left and kicked up plumes of dust that made him wheeze before getting chased back out the broken window by a couple of Ghirofelgos. They'd been hunched over something oozing yellow globules of fat and bright blood onto the moldy carpet. His hands didn't stop shaking for an hour afterwards.

This place couldn't have been dead for that long. Wasn't possible. It was probably just the way the lingering stench of fear soaked through the air and settled heavily over his pores.

Cloud shifted, tugging on the harness of his sword. Something in his pocket crackled loudly, and he palmed it. It crinkled again when he pulled it out and folded it into a tight, hasty square.

It was a ration wrapper. Berry flavour.

Jordon had tossed it at him when he'd sat down to inspect his sword while the Thirds were getting prepped. There'd been a few more nicks and chips on the edge of the blade, and a dark patch where the oil had worn away and a stain had taken root.

"We should try to eat something," Jordon had said when Cloud had opened his fist and looked dubiously at the dense brick.

"New improved flavour!" the foil wrapper proclaimed in bright purple lettering.

Cloud had snickered before he ripped it open. "Cheers." It tasted like sawdust.

He'd tried to use one of the ration bars as tinder once, when everything else in his kit was soaked through by rain. For something so dry, it had been surprisingly resistant to burning, and had simply smouldered for a moment before blackening to a husk and giving off the foul smell of scorched rubber. Travers had been there to laugh himself to hiccups while Cloud gagged and wiped at his streaming eyes.

The air in Wutai was too thin and damp to start a burn properly, without considerable effort.

The next thing he'd known, Jordon was half hunched over in front of him and staring.

"Sir?"

Cloud had blinked for a second, and then he'd swallowed, half-chewed bits of bar slowly gouging grooves down his esophagus. "Yum," he'd croaked when he could talk without choking. His smile had felt off, but it had seemed like enough to convince Jordon, at least.

The folded wrapper was quiet in his pocket, but his mouth still felt like he'd tried to snort rock dust.

He shut his eyes. Shit, way to hold it together, Strife.

The voice in his head laughed.

Cloud smothered the growl scratching at his throat. If disembodied exhibit A piped up one more fucking time, he was pretty damn sure he was going to have a bag lady moment. And then they'd strip away his command and shove him into a padded cell decorated with eye-watering white cushions and his name in big letters over the door, so it had better shut up or just  _piss off_.

He listened. Nothing.

Good.  _Asshole._

His shoulders cracked when he straightened them forcibly.

Cloud turned his back to the empty corridors and scanned the waiting Soldiers. The silence was oppressive against his neck.

Orders. They were waiting for orders.

 _Fuck_.

It didn't make sense, the way Lazard—hell, and Angeal—thought he'd make a good leader. He wasn't good at anything besides talking big and fighting. Before he was sent to the front, before this whole fiasco, Lazard had asked him once what his dream was. Like a cocky little dipshit, he'd spouted something about being a hero. But what the hell was a hero supposed to do in the face of gaping halls that weren't supposed to be deserted, plans falling to pieces around his ears, and waiting, just fucking waiting for the other shoe to drop?

A traitorous little bitch thought wondered what Angeal would do.

If Lazard asked again, if he had the chance to rethink that answer, getting out of this alive and with all bits intact would have been great, thanks. Sounded like a good dream to him. Maybe he'd retire. Go snowboarding on the Northern Continent. Race chocobos at the Gold Saucer. Get as far away from ShinRa as he damn well could.

But then he'd never see Angeal again.

Angeal wouldn't have gotten them into this mess in the first place.

Cloud gnawed on the inside of his lip and narrowed his eyes. He took stock. One recalcitrant asshole, several Thirds that were starting to look worried despite his best efforts, whatever those were, a kid vacillating somewhere between catatonia and nervous vibrations, and one vocal ghost who talked like he'd done it all before.

He prodded at the inside of his head.

Nothing. It felt hollow, a pit of an alleyway strewn with garbage. Of course. That would have been too easy.

"Forenz, Jordon, and," he paused, raising his eyebrows at the last Third, a guy who looked early thirties, average build, bit of overbite.

"McPhee, sir," the Third said.

"McPhee." Cloud nodded. "You're with Robertsson."

Robertsson grunted, straightening up when Cloud turned to him.

"I want you to take the left hallway."

One of Robertsson's eyes creased. The scarred one didn't move much. "You've already split us up to set a sentry core," he said tightly. "You're leaving yourself with no backup."

Cloud didn't respond, staring until Robertsson's mouth twitched and the man looked away.

"Hn."

That was either Robertsson-speak for "sorry I questioned your orders," or "you're a fucking idiot, but I can't say that due to decorum."

Pale green misted the walls. "I've got Timms," Cloud said quietly. "I want this done quickly. As it is, we don't have the slightest idea about how big this base is, or where the POWs are kept. No one's coming to give us the grand tour, and we need the basic scope of the place to start. The PHS system is down, so the main group will form our core. Find anything, you send a runner with info back to them, and we'll both check back periodically."

Robertsson hummed, eyed the Thirds clustered around him, and jerked his head before turning to the black hall.

"Robertsson," Cloud called. Like it or not, it had been comforting, knowing that the other Second had been watching his back. And that he could do the same. "I have no intention of dying here," he said. His voice grated, just a bit harsh with the things he couldn't say.

The Second didn't turn around, didn't respond for a moment. Then he started walking, waving a loose hand over his shoulder. "I'm flattered by the concern," he drawled.

Cloud couldn't help the short laugh. Just for a second, the weight clamped to his shoulder blades lightened.

He tapped his gloved fingers on Timms' shoulder as he passed, tilting his head to smile at the Third.

"Come on."

* * *

The first room down the hall to the right looked like a soldiers' mess. The long tables and benches, arranged in neat rows, were universally recognizable, as were the covered counters and windows edging one of the walls. It didn't take much of a stretch of imagination to see dour-faced old men behind the counters, puffy hairnets on their heads and a ladle full of mystery meat number one in their hands. Or whatever the Wutai military ate. Maybe they got a choice of Chihuahua meatloaf or snake liver pâté. At ShinRa, the guys would bitch and grumble, but they'd eat it anyway.

Here, the silence was absolute.

"It's kind of eerie," Timms said hoarsely, "how dead it is here."

Cloud hummed in agreement.

Out in the hall, the bulb was still making sporadic zaps. He found himself tensing in anticipation of the next pulse. Cloud clenched his teeth together before flexing his jaw out and around until it crackled. Stupid. Trying to pick out patterns in randomized bullshit. The meager light of the bulb made the black even denser, ink thick.

He exhaled sharply.

Focus.

The benches were arranged in perfect alignment, in a way soldiers would never leave them after use. He toed one, and it rasped across the concrete floor.

Too clean.

The floor was spotless. The tables, too, as if someone had gone through the room and given it a thorough sanitizing just before abandoning it. It didn't make sense.

Unless they did it because they had something to hide.

Cloud started shoving tables aside. They scraped as they slid with the sound of distant thunder.

"Sir?"

Cloud twisted around. Timms was still standing in the door. The light framing him from outside cast a long blurry shadow at his feet. A gloved hand was clasped over his other wrist, slowly twisting.

When the Third didn't move, Cloud straightened. "Problem, Timms?"

Timms' hands tightened. "I—" His helmet was a black dome over his face. He shook his head suddenly, and he stepped into the room. "What am I looking for?"

Cloud watched as the other Soldier peered around. After a moment, he shrugged. "Anything out of place," he said. "Something they might have missed when cleaning this place up. But don't fucking  _touch_  it, you understand?"

"Right." A bench banged on the floor when it tipped over.

The Third kicked aside another table. Cloud's fingers made muffled clicks against his belt before he hooked his thumbs into his pockets and dragged. The motion tamped down the urge to hunch his shoulders as he stared at Timms. He didn't know what to make of that one. Kunsel was a lot better at this shit than he was. Figuring people out.

"You okay, Timms?"

The noise stopped, and this time, the bulb outside sounded louder.

Timms laughed briefly, and it was a bit shaky. "Yeah. Sir. Just... Rich-ass company like ShinRa can't be bothered to kit us with flashlights or something."

Ah.

Cloud snorted, swinging his leg high to step over a skewed bench. "Nah, too boring. Professor Hojo would probably try installing sonar in our ears first."

Timms laughed again.

Then, when Cloud put his boot down, something warm squished under his foot. It squirmed hard and squealed loud enough to drown out his shout as it shot forward, ripping out from under him and toppling him. The jarring tore up his spine when he landed and made his teeth crunch and his vision swim. Twisting violently, Cloud rolled himself onto all fours, nearly pitching forward to crack his head on the floor when a hand slipped.

"The fuck is  _that_?" he wheezed.

It was still screaming, shrill screeches echoing. There was a crashing thump, and then clatters sounded. Cloud looked up to see Timms drag himself back to his feet. Bracing his hands on its surface, the Third crouched by a long table, helmet whipping around one direction before the next. Then, he surged up, yelling. The table tipped, smashing to its side. The screams silenced abruptly.

Cloud stood, shuffling forward to peer over the table. The smell hit him like a brick between the eyes, making his throat sear, and he rocked back abruptly. Coughing into the arm he pressed into his mouth, Cloud clamped a hand around Timms' arm and pulled the Third back a few steps. Timms was gagging, hunched over his stomach.

"Nice," Cloud rasped, when he could talk.

Timms made a short noise in his throat.

It looked like a dog, whatever it was he'd stepped on. Cloud edged around the table until he could see both sides. It was thoroughly dead now, but it couldn't have been that pleasant a sight when it had been alive. Its head lay against the table face, twisted at an angle only possible with a severed backbone. A thin strip of flesh, matted fur flattened to the floor, held it loosely in place. Its limp body lay on the other side of the table edge, distended belly ripped open by the impact. Something glistened as it slithered out onto the floor. Loose guts, probably. It was hard to tell, the way the tissues had liquefied.

Its legs twitched once, convulsing and slipping in the slime coating the floor.

Cloud flinched, biting into his tongue against the sound that tried to force its way through his teeth.

It didn't move again.

He waited, watching the black shape. Under the harsh whistles of his breath, the bulb in the hall buzzed its incessant code. There was more of the slime around the dog's muzzle.

He frowned. "What was it eating?" His voice sounded muffled through the scratchy cotton stuffing his ears and mouth. He pivoted, scanning the mess of overturned and crushed furniture.

Cloud saw it at about the same time as Timms did. A mangled piece of metal—a crushed tin cup or something—and what looked like fossilized scraps of food, all bathed in a layer of slime that gave off the faint radioactive glow of mako.

Cloud stepped over a fallen bench end toward it as Timms skirted around and crouched down over the patch.

"What do you think this—"

Shit. Shit  _shit_!

The Third reached out a hand.

When Cloud clamped his fingers over the back of the Third's uniform and yanked, Timms' helmet tumbled off into the smear. Cloud spun him around, keeping his grip so that the fabric twisted tightly in his hand and bunched noose-like around the Third's neck.

Timms made a choking sound. Cloud ignored it in favour of ripping off the Third's glove and flinging it to the ground.

He shoved hard before he let go, and Timms staggered.

"I said  _not to touch anything_!" Cloud hissed, leaning into Timms' purpled face.

In the corner of his eye, he saw a curl of smoke coil over the surface of the glove. The leather sagged inward. An acrid smell pierced his palate with bright little needles, and his tongue felt heavy, coated with grease. The helmet was still rocking, squelches and tiny clicks accompanying its motion. A diseased gleam coated the surface, where it had touched the slime. The helmet's face had gone green. The colour spread, soaking through the metal.

Mako had surged to Timms' eyes in response, and the discs practically shone neon. His face was mottled red, and irregular ridges lined his neck where his collar had dug in. Cloud felt his teeth grind, and his boot squeaked loudly when he turned his back. The gut deep desire to re-break the Third's crooked nose burned in his belly and made his ears roar as it ripped at his control.

The helmet had gone black in patches. As Cloud watched, some of the metal crackled and caved inward, crumbling like ash. Flakes, little clicking chips bounced on the floor and shattered. The rest of the armour had deformed, flattening, rock sugar dissolving into a stovetop pan.

He couldn't look at Timms.  _Control_. Fuck, he couldn't look at Timms.

It was the same stuff as he'd seen in the forest, melting off of the corpse hidden in the trees. Whatever it was, it was definitely involved in the stillness of the Wutai base. They'd tried to cover it up, but it looked like a fight had taken place in the mess. An attack, maybe, from who or whatever was spewing the slime.

With his luck, it was some kind of giant flesh-eating monster that digested its food outside of its body.

He could hear it again, the broken humming of the bulb outside. The sound had gained an additional note of malevolence now. A threat pointed at its intruders.

"I'm sorry, sir," Timms mumbled from behind him.

Making a strangled sound halfway between a bitter laugh and a growl, Cloud pressed a hand over his eye sockets and scrubbed.

* * *

The corridor didn't end. It stretched longer with every step Cloud took, slowly sinking downward. The slope was imperceptible, and he wouldn't have noticed it had the dank pressure not increased against his shoulders as the air grew heavier with moisture. Or if the hall didn't extend to unreasonable lengths.

Maybe there'd been a screw-up in communications while it was being built, and the tunnellers had taken their enthusiasm to the extreme. Maybe it wasn't actually that long, and he was simply experiencing time dilation as he travelled because the world and its laws of physics were conspiring to fuck him over and prevent him from reaching the other end.

Cloud paused. Ahead, identical blank doors broke the blank walls to either side, stretching into the darkness. He tried one. It swung open soundlessly to reveal a stall-like room. A low bed, a small table. A prison cell passing off as living quarters.

Tapping his tongue against the inside of his teeth, Cloud backed out and surveyed the silent hall.

"Fantastic."

A shuffling noise caught his attention.

Timms tugged on his sword's belt again, yanking it farther along his shoulder. The Third had been quiet since the slime had eaten his helmet. He slouched permanently, as if unused to the lack of weight.

"Take that side, Timms. Check the rooms."

Timms' eyes widened as he stared down the hall, but he nodded. "Got it."

Cloud turned forward.

Maybe he should have left the Third with the core group. Or better yet, sent him with Robertsson and sat back to watch and practice his best sadistic laugh.

He couldn't have been that stupid when he was a rookie.

Maybe.

Fuck.

The flash of sunlight refracting through materia blinded him for a fraction of a second, and Cloud squeezed his eyes shut. The wave of vertigo rolled down through his stomach into his knees, leaving an ashy taste in his mouth and the memory of a gloved hand before his eyes, reaching out to pull him up.

He shook his head roughly, and he pushed into the next room. The beds were made neatly, as if the Wutai had been waiting for an inspection. Cloud snorted, letting the door fall shut. Not much different from ShinRa, then. Nothing else could coerce Travers to clean.

Across the hall, Timms stepped out of another door. He stopped, catching sight of Cloud. "Nothing in that one, sir."

Cloud nodded, reaching for the next polished doorknob. It pressed into his palm, chilly and smooth.

On his first mission, he'd been a cocky little asswipe, about ten years younger than any of the other guys. Thought he was god's gift to Soldier. He'd ended up jeopardizing the entire mission and nearly getting the team killed by Zoloms. Cloud's knees still ached at the memory of the punishment for that one.

The hollow feeling gnawing on the inside of his ribs intensified. It sucked balls, growing up on a mission.

Cloud stifled a sigh, and it whistled in his nose. Lifting his head as he edged into the quarters, he glanced around. The door creaked under his grip. Same small bed, same cheap particle board table. Only this time, the table wasn't bare. Stepping further into the room, Cloud edged around the furniture and stared down at the little cluster arranged carefully on the surface.

There was a tarnished photo frame, gilded edges worn smooth where fingers would go when it was picked up.

This deep, even light seemed weighted down, and it was hard to make out the picture in the frame. It looked like a girl, just a kid, smiling through a wide gap in her teeth. A little stack of round papers sat in front of the frame, square holes cut into their centres, brilliant white compared to the grey of the rest of the room. Weighing them down was a fist-sized jar of sand, like the incense holders the merchants peddled down below the plate back in Midgar as foreign junky knick-knacks before the war got really bad and they either vanished or plastered their walls with ShinRa propaganda.

There wasn't any incense, just a thick layer of black scum over the sand. Cloud stuffed a glove into his back pocket before he reached out. A couple of papers drifted to the floor when he picked up the incense holder, and they stuck, plastering themselves to the concrete. He ignored them, fingers curling around the pot in his hand. The mouth of the jar was faintly warm to the touch.

He'd already reached for the photo frame before his hand stopped. Dropping his arm, he pressed his palm into the side of his uniform pants, and he rubbed hard. The thick material scratched over his skin.

The incense pot chimed softly when he set it down, back in front of the little memorial.

A flicker of pain in his other hand caught his attention, and he looked down. A row of indents still creased the worn leather of his glove, even after he'd forced his fist loose. He couldn't see the picture anymore, not at this angle.

Stepping back, Cloud let out a long, low breath.

* * *

Timms was waiting by the door when he stepped outside. The Third had a sheaf of papers in his hand, loosely bound with some sort of mottled twine.

"What did you find?" Cloud said, jerking his chin at the notebook.

Timms handed it over, and Cloud felt his eyebrows crawl up his hairline as he stared down at the crammed pages.

"A log or something, sir." Timms shrugged. "I can't tell if it's important."

Cloud's mouth twisted up. "No shit." He turned the papers the other way around to see if they looked any better. Still gibberish. It must have been the right way up initially, since the heading looked like the date. He waved the sheets at the Third. "Can you read Wutai?"

Timms grimaced. "Uh. No."

"Me neither."

Timms seemed to wince as he looked away, his mouth tightening like he was chewing on the inside of his lip. "Sorry, sir."

In the silence, the damp air pressed into Cloud's skin, clinging and squeezing. In the walls, there was a long moan, just at the edge of hearing, as dirt settled above their heads, weighing down on the tunnel.

Cloud slapped the notes back into the Third's chest, and Timms pulled his hands up to catch them reflexively. Pages spilled loosely over his spread fingers.

"Might be useful, though. Go ahead if you want to take them.  _Someone_  has to be able to read this shit who doesn't want to turn us into a collective pasta strainer."

Timms' mouth twitched.

Cloud scuffed his boots over the ground as he headed for the next door on his side. "Come on. There're a fuck ton more doors to check."

"Sir," Timms called from behind him.

Cloud shoved his hands into his pockets as he leaned back to look around. "What?"

"I..." The Third waved a hand vaguely, the one that didn't have a glove. He seemed to notice, because he looked at the scraped knuckles, scowled, and balled his hand into a fist. "Sorry, sir."

Cloud waited, but there wasn't anything else. He made an impatient noise. "Quit that. We all screw up sometimes. Just get better."

Mako eyes fixed on him.

"I know you can do better," Cloud said quietly. Then he pulled a quick grin. "Just move your ass, 'cause if I have to go through all these rooms myself, I'll have to come up with something even worse for you to do, and you don't want me to get creative."

Timms smiled crookedly, hunched into something like half a shrug and half a cringe, and he stuffed the notebook into a pouch.

"Hey sir," the Third said again, just as Cloud opened the next door. "Did you find anything?"

Cloud paused without turning around. A phantom pain snapped at his palm, the knuckles trying to clench again. When he exhaled, his breath sounded loud to his ears. He pressed his mouth shut for a moment.

"No, nothing."

He let the door swing shut behind him.

* * *

Cloud pressed himself further into the shadows. The little recess was barely a dent in the wall, and the Wutai walking slowly up the hallway would see him if they just turned their heads at the right time. Better than nothing, though.

Timms was flattened to the wall a bit further up. One of his hands was gripping the door frame he stood against, his fingers outlined dimly. They tightened sporadically.

There were two ninja. A skeleton patrol. They were murmuring quietly, slurring their sharp syllables together.

A quiet thought wondered if one of them owned the photo frame. Cloud screwed his eyes shut tightly as he smothered it.

Cloud stood still as the patrol passed, certain that they could hear the brittle chips of fear rattling in his lungs. He ground them down, dragging in his diaphragm and syncing his breath to that of the ninja. Eddies of air brushed chilled fingers over his skin, and he moved with them.

They paused, just past him, and he froze.

One man, dressed in a sergeant's colours, turned to face the other. He was saying something. Cloud saw the shift of his jaw, though his mouth was shrouded in shadows. It didn't matter. He couldn't hear anything over the roar of his pulse in his ears anyway. The ringing burrowed into his eardrums until they felt like they would leak. His sword's guard dug into his ribs, and he felt the gentle tickle of sweat beading at the side of his nose as the protests of his ribcage grew and the tension in his joints screamed.

Focus.  _Focus._

He caught a flash of a smile on the sergeant's face as the man turned again to start walking, gesturing at the private at his back to follow.

The smile scored itself in inverted colours over Cloud's retinas, and he squinted hard as he darted forward, clamping a hand over the Wutai private's mouth and nose. His fingers squeezed, almost tight enough to break skin, as he raised his sword up under the man's chin and dragged.

The blood felt blisteringly hot against his forearm when it sprayed. The private sagged against him, muscles still slack from surprise. He hadn't had enough time to tense. Good. Cloud pressed his lips into a tight line. It would have made his throat harder to cut.

Splatters of fluid hit the near wall with damp thumps, and the sergeant whipped around just as Cloud was letting the body fall. The ninja's voice rasped, briefly, breathily, before he bared his teeth, lunging forward into a thrust of his gun lance. A threat or a name? The question lodged somewhere in Cloud's head even as he backpedalled furiously. The private's weight was impeding his arms, and fuck the man was  _fast_.

Timms charged into the ninja headfirst and they hit the wall with a crash that shook dust from the ceiling and left a dent when they rebounded and crumpled to the floor. The Third rolled, lashing out with a boot. It connected with the ninja's chin with a crunch, and the man flopped onto his back, his breath expelling loudly.

Timms made a half-leap, half-furious crawl, and then he was hunched over the ninja, sword in a backhanded grip to drive downward.

Cloud wasn't entirely surprised when the Third hesitated.

He shoved the Wutai private to the floor as he tried to launch himself into a sprint. His breath seized in his chest when the private's legs tangled over his ankles, and he toppled hard. Buzzing shocks jack-hammered their way up his arms from where his elbows hit the concrete. Through the black spots pounding at his vision, he saw the sergeant kick Timms' sword away. The man vaulted to his feet in time to smash his face into Timms' vicious combo of punches that started by sending the sergeant's helmet flying and ended with driving the air out of his stomach. As the ninja slumped, Timms hopped backward, hunching down on unsteady legs and fumbling for the sword at his feet.

Cloud heaved himself up onto his haunches just as the Wutai sergeant staggered to his feet behind Timms, raising his lance.

" _Duck!_ " Cloud bellowed, slinging his sword arm forward.

The Third didn't look up. He threw himself flat just as the lance began to descend, and Cloud let go of the worn hilt. Metal sang as it flew, screeching on impact.

Cloud let his head drop, taking in sharp gulps of air. His arms wobbled, and he hit the ground with a grunt, twisting to land on a shoulder. Throbs shoved to the back of his mind took the opportunity to surge forward and wail for attention, and he tilted an elbow up. The heat spreading through the livid bruise hummed, molten syrup smooth, and he let out a long breath. He rolled onto his back, draping his forearm over his eyes, and the coolness of damp-chilled skin permeated his aching sockets.

Timms was scuffling around somewhere out of sight.

Cloud made an impressed sound, and it wobbled in his throat. "Where'd you learn hand to hand like that?" he said.

There was a short, heartfelt groan. "Sergeant Cage. She told us we were going to be maggots forever if we couldn't at least defend ourselves without a weapon. And then she beat the shit out of us every MWF of Basic."

There was a scraping sound, and Cloud shifted his arm just enough to see Timms yank Cloud's sword free from where it was pinning the Wutai sergeant. The ninja dropped, slapping wetly into the puddle of black under his feet. The hole where the thrown blade had driven into the wall crumbled a bit at the edges and dropped gravel onto the body.

"She kind of reminded me of my mom," Timms muttered.

Cloud snickered, dropping his head back down.

Metal rasped, chafing on something. Timms was trying to clean the sword, Cloud realized.

He snorted. "Never mind that." He reached out.

Timms blinked for a second before he pressed the broadsword's hilt into Cloud's glove.

Cloud stared at the gently fraying leather wrapping the hilt and the dusty blood rolling across the metal. The beads were slowing, drying and congealing in the air. He tried to stifle the laugh this time, but it forced free in a rumbling honk. Cloud dropped a hand over his face, his shoulders scratching over the concrete as they shook. The tip of his sword dipped and chimed against the floor.

"You okay, sir?"

The snickers were grating in his throat, making his trachea grind. He switched his sword to his other hand, and he raised his right arm again.

"Thanks, Timms, appreciated," Cloud said, pausing to drag in a breath past another chortle, "but give me a hand up, this time."

There was blood seeping into his uniform pants, soaking up from the floor and quickly turning clammy against his leg, but he let his head thump down onto the ground and kept laughing anyway. It wasn't like there was anyone else around to hear.

* * *

This part of the base was newer. The scent of fresh concrete still lingered a bit, and the walls stretched blank and smooth, like they'd been laminated with something too thick.

Ahead, the corridor curved, a faint blue glow painted across the bend.

Something was up there.

Cloud wasn't sure how he knew this. It wasn't any kind of coherent thought process. He just  _knew_. His blood was thrumming in his ears.

Cloud's eyes narrowed. He slowed, jerking his fingers behind his back.

There hadn't been any rooms for a while now. Something ahead they hadn't wanted the grunts to see. Bubbles of anticipation were popping in his mouth, stinging his tongue and making his hands tingle.

He heard the rustle as Timms tensed behind him.

He crept forward. It was glass. Panes of glass lined the wall on his left, the blue light diffusing easily through the windows. The floor dropped away on the inside, a ring of steps leading down to a circular room. A bank of consoles lined a wall, each wide screen lit up bright. Cloud squeezed his eyes to slivers, squinting in at the flickering screens. The glare fuzzed the images to incomprehensibility.

Cloud had just pressed a hand over smooth glass when there was a tortured groan at his back, and he whirled.

Another creak of movement, a quick gurgle of splashing liquid.

A voice.

Cloud's head shot up, making Timms jump and bring a hand to his sword. He heard a voice.

Maybe?

Judging from the look on Timms's face, the Third hadn't heard anything, and now that Cloud thought about it, he wasn't sure he had either. It hadn't come through his ears. It had just been there, in his head. One moment nothing; the next,  _there_.

There was another door, across the hallway, its blank white shape outlined against the wall. There was another low moan. Timms threw himself back as Cloud charged past him. The door didn't budge when Cloud tried the handle. Unlike the living quarters, this door opened outward, and it was built heavy. It barely moved, only rattling and making the windows across the hall shiver, when Cloud slammed a shoulder into it. A growl rumbled through his chest and he stepped back. He took a couple of running hops, and when he jumped, he bore down with both boots, putting his full weight into the kick. Thick wood crunched, and splinters scythed by, clattering as they hit the wall in an explosive spray. The crash of the remnants of the door hitting the floor amplified the din and made it echo, and inside the room, something squealed at the noise.

Cloud ducked down to the ground outside the gap, reaching over his shoulder for his broadsword. Movement flickered in the periphery of his vision, and he met Timms' eyes across the broken door. The Third nodded, his sword up in a defensive crouch.

"I'll check it out," the Third mouthed.

Cloud's eyes slitted for a moment, and he tightened his jaw before he jerked his head sharply.

He watched Timms take a deep breath through his open mouth, and then the Third whirled into the gap, sword up and ready.

Silence stuffed itself down Cloud's nose and throat, trying to suffocate him as he waited. It stretched out like taffy.

"Just a bunch of tanks, sir," came Timms' quiet call.

Cloud surged to his feet, catching a hand on the door jamb to help him pivot and swing through the splinter-edged gap.

Brushed-metal cylinders stood in neat rows, flakes of rust starting to eat away at their bottom edges. Thick pipes sprouted from each tank, rising to meet a main vein bolted to the tall ceiling. And in each tank, a porthole cut into the metal at about eye level, the gleam of mako within blazing even brighter in the dark. Cloud squinted, resisting the urge to slap an arm over his eyes.

"What's in them, Timms?" he said hoarsely.

The Third turned away from one of the windows, eyes wide and neon-bright with reflected glare. "Monsters, sir," he rasped.

It was probably something in Timms' voice that made Cloud's legs try to seize like they'd been encased in ice as he approached. Mako didn't have a scent, not in the traditional sense. It hovered on the line between organic and inorganic, between matter and energy, each dense stream whole and indivisible. Individual streams moved together, acting like a fluid, but spread thin enough, it took on the form of short strands of spider silk. It didn't vaporize, didn't sublimate. There were no receptors for it in the human nose. The texts marched in neat rows in Cloud's head, condescending and obnoxious. Wholly unconvincing.

The memory of mako burn tasted acrid and sour in Cloud's throat, and his breath rattled. He walked slowly, peering into each tank as he passed. None of the monsters looked alike. Grotesque curled horns sprouted from the face of one, and long dagger-like claws extended from the hands of another, gently tapping against the sides of its tank as it bobbed inside. Leathery gills flapped on another's neck.

An incongruously small mouth opened in the face of a monster covered in glittering scales, head the size of a battle shield. Triple rows of white teeth sat in the mouth, clean and straight. Almost human.

Suddenly, a long, thin tongue slapped out against the glass, flapping as it slammed into the porthole again and again, and Cloud jumped back hastily, stumbling over a raised pipe running along the walls. The monster's mouth was opened wide, but no noise came from its black lips. There were only rapid clicks and taps as the tongue struck the glass, and eventually, that died out. The tongue stilled, a length of its tip the size of a spread hand pressed against the window, scraping heavily over it as if tasting the opening.

"I think they're all alive," Cloud said, his voice tight under the pressure constricting his lungs.

Bursts of bubbles spiralled inside the tanks, the gush of fluid sucking evenly like measured breaths. Vaguely humanoid arms drifted in the liquids.

"Why are they making monsters?"

Cloud turned to look at Timms. The Third had his sword at his side, its tip dipping up and down as his hand clenched. Behind him, something was rapping on thick glass with pronged spikes that bristled from its torso. There was no pattern to the sound, just a slow, ringing clack at uneven intervals that made bumps crawl and inch up Cloud's neck.

"I don't know," he said. "Why wouldn't they make monsters?"

Timms' face was greener than the mako backwash light warranted.

The weird buzzing sensation had been there the entire time as he'd inspected the tanks. It lingered in the back of his mind, half a sound, half a touch. It had been swelling and dipping, almost like a tuneless hum in someone's throat, made only because the originator's attention is caught by something else.

It droned insistently.

Cloud saw it just as he was turning his head to edge down another aisle. A swirl of brown hair.

The buzz crested, and his breath choked in his chest.

There!

His mind resonated. It was like all the voices in his head had jumped up, ganged up together, and starting crowing.

There there  _there_!

He darted past another couple of tanks. He caught himself just before he thumped into metal, his palms slapping onto the smooth surface as he stared into the hole.

"Geoffreys!"

The man floated, dipping gently. His eyes were open, unseeing and unblinking, stained a virulent green.

"You alive in there, Geoffreys?" Cloud bellowed. If the Soldier could hear him, he didn't show it.

Cloud pawed at the sides of the tank, searching for any edge to the unbroken metal. A latch ripped at his forearm, leaving a burning swathe of scraped skin. He closed his hand over it and yanked.

Green liquid roared out of the gap, battering against Cloud's boots and making him stagger. He curled his fingers, digging his gloves into the edge of the lid to hold himself up. The force of his grip was making his knuckles crackle, disjointed pops vibrating up his arms. He felt them dimly. They probably hurt. He couldn't tell, not past the helium lightness pumping its way into his veins. He stepped back, wrenching the lid off its hinges and releasing the final slosh of fluids.

Some of the green splattered over his skin this time, searing down to the bone, and air whooshed out of his lungs as he stumbled. It clamped down on him, the atmosphere, thickening and slamming a fist into his mouth and crushing his windpipe.

The resonance increased, almost to the point of pain. All his nerves pulled tight as guitar strings, and then a hand reached out and  _strummed_.

Blackness clawed into his vision, and when he screwed his eyes shut, nothing but green filled his head. He saw his hands, blunt nails scrabbling at the curve of glass. Rage poured through his veins, his mind blank of anything but the boiling, snarling desire to rip out the eyes peering in at him through the window.

Maul the fucker's face off! Do it do it  _do it DO IT KILL HIM_ —

The cold curve of metal pressed into his spine, and Cloud slammed his head back into the tank behind him. His lungs howled for breath, and he let his mouth fall open, sucking damply. He thumped his head backward again, the sharp crack of the blow sending blazing heat through his scalp and chasing away the pressure squishing his eyeballs to pulp.

Stop it  _stop_  it!

The buzzing in his bones faded, settling sullenly, leaving him gasping.

What?

What the  _fuck_?

Had those been Geoffreys's thoughts?

In front of him, Geoffreys slumped to the floor on the inside of his tank, and Timms' boots screeched as he rounded a corner and skidded to a halt.

Cloud heaved himself up off the tank behind him, taking a wobbly couple of steps forward. He dropped into the crouch harder than he intended, catching himself on the edges of the ripped tank as he pitched in toward it.

No. That was stupid. No one had ever recorded an instance of mako leading to some kind of... warped telepathy.

Mako fumes had probably screwed with his head, amplifying whatever he'd been feeling while looking at the man who'd followed him into that deathtrap of a valley back in Wutai. Even then, the Third had never looked so helpless, floating unresponsively in that green.

Reaching out, his hand stopped, hovering just over Geoffreys's skin.

Fear had stopped him. Fear that he would touch, and Geoffreys would be cold under his hands. Fear that the vision would return, once more of the mako soaked into his pores.

Fuck, Strife. Pull it together.

Another breath, and he closed his fingers over Geoffreys's wrist. A moment later, he let his eyes droop closed and his head fall on his wooden neck, a smile creaking its way over his face. The Third's skin was clammy, but it was warm underneath, where the man's pulse bumped steadily against Cloud's fingertips.

"Sir?"

Cloud looked up at Timms, grinning widely. "Come on, help me pull him out."

He settled Geoffreys's weight against his shoulder, hooking one of the Third's arms over his neck and holding it in place. His bare skin was a bit slippery in Cloud's grip, but it was quickly drying.

Cloud glanced around the rows of tanks. "Not much for him to wear around here, huh?" he said.

Timms snickered.

Cloud smiled at the Third. "Ah well, he can worry about his modesty later." The Soldier's feet dragged on the floor as Cloud heaved Geoffreys out into the corridor outside. He glanced down the empty hall. Through the wide windows, the screens still glowed. "Timms," he said sharply.

The Third loped forward and peered at him.

"Run. Go back to the main group. Tell them what we found, and then come back here. If you see Robertsson along the way, bring him with you."

Timms' eyes darted around the corridor. "Here, sir?"

Cloud jerked his head at the row of windows. "We'll be in there. Might be something worth checking out on the computers."

Timms nodded.

"Get the lead out, Soldier!" Cloud barked, his lips twisting up.

The Third grinned back before he pivoted into a sprint.

* * *

Cloud dropped Geoffreys onto a wide bench, wincing as the man's head slapped into the metal and a booming clang resounded. He swung Geoffreys's legs up, propping them on the bench in a way that didn't look entirely comfortable, but at least he wasn't about to roll off.

Cloud snorted to himself. No wonder his mother never let him keep a pet.

Satisfied, he turned to the wall of screens. The keyboards looked universal enough. ShinRa tech. Terrorist's choice. The company probably wouldn't like that slogan. Old man Shinra never really struck him as the easily amused type. Cloud leaned over the keys, peering at the screens. Coded, of course, but it looked like it was written in Midgar Standard. Cloud tapped a button, and a cursor started blinking.

Passkey prompt.

Well shit. Paranoid bastards.

He tried a random string based on his birthday because hell, what did he have to lose. The cursor flashed red at him. Hah.

Watching the slow blink, Cloud leaned over, pressing his hands into the control panel and bending until a ghost of chilled metal brushed over his forehead. He closed his eyes and breathed.

Something giddy was humming in his gut, pumping gas into his head until his eyes bloated and his tongue felt fat and clumsy in his mouth.

He'd found Geoffreys.

Every single drop of hope he'd been suppressing, shovelling down to the back of his mind, was surging him, making his head buzz, choking his breath in his chest.

It was making him stupid.

"Come on," he said, a whisper, as he thumped his head down onto the metal lightly, "focus."

He couldn't afford stupid.

He pried himself up, tugging off his gloves with his teeth, and the smooth keys clacked under his fingertips as he started typing in earnest. The sound rattled in his head, sending his thoughts scattering like a pack of fat flies. At ShinRa, the passkeys rotated through a multi-day system, where each key had a limited pool of possible patterns. Once Angeal had started to let Cloud set up his own training programs in the VR facility, he'd needed to get into the system, and there'd been fuck-all chance that he would remember the weekly string of numbers some tech fired off at him to represent the current sequence of passkeys. Eventually, he'd simply memorized all of the ranges. There was no reason why the passkeys would follow the ShinRa—Green light.

Cloud's hands froze over the keys as he stared up at the screens. The next in a series of nested prompts blinked at him.

"Well, fuck me blind," he croaked.

The keyboard clattered as he typed, his neck clanging as he glanced up with every attempt.

Green light.

He should have known. There were some alterations, but this entire base stank of stolen ShinRa technology.

Green light.

It would have taken some damn high level clearance to disappear this stuff halfway across the planet, though.

Green light.

Cloud squinted up at the screen. If it followed the pattern, the next passkey would be the last. Behind it, answers.

Something brushed across his nape, wisp-soft, and Cloud whipped around, his hip cracking against the desks and sending shockwaves up and down his side. Every muscle in his body seized up, his tendons feeling like they were going to rip themselves off of his bones, and he stared up at the man perched on top of the screens. Mako eyes drifted half shut as they sized him, and feathers fluttered gently through dead air.

Even in the dim light, the red coat gleamed.

"The wanderer travels." The voice was soft. "Searching. Always searching."

Cloud shuffled back, raising a hand to his sword. The other man didn't move but for a slow blink.

"Genesis," he hissed.

The First tilted his head. "Angeal's pup," he said, his mouth curving upward.

"My name's Cloud," he snapped. A pause, and he scowled. "This was all you, wasn't it? They couldn't have gotten a hold of all this stuff if you hadn't been feeding it to them. What were you trying to do?"

There was a slow smile. "Infinite in mystery is the gift of the goddess  
We seek it thus, and take to the sky  
Ripples form on the water's surface  
The wandering soul knows no rest."

"A  _gift_?" Cloud said, his voice sharp and high. "You call this a  _gift_? They kidnapped Soldiers!" He flung out a hand toward Geoffreys's still form. Genesis' eyes flickered to the side, and Cloud's hands twitched. A reaction. He twisted his mouth, and he pressed it. "What, are you gonna say you weren't involved in that? Look at him!" It was weird, how dry his mouth was when spit was flecking his lips as the words poured out, unstoppable. "Now, I've got him, and I'm going to figure out what the hell is wrong with him, so you can either give me a straight answer or fuck off!"

"A gift; a curse," Genesis said quietly. "The goddess is both merciful and cruel, and none at the same time."

Cloud snarled, dragging his hands through his hair. "I don't know what you  _mean_!"

Genesis watched him in the silence. Then, he closed his eyes and sighed. "They sought the means to create Soldiers. I sought..." He paused, reaching out to finger a long pinfeather. He shook his head slightly. "It doesn't matter. They all decay eventually."

Cloud's eyes widened until they burned. "You gave them the technology to make Soldiers?" he said, softly.

Gloved fingers squeaked as they waved. "Incomplete," Genesis said. "They could not accomplish the tasks they agreed to, and when I withdrew, they attempted to continue the experiments, taking Soldiers as raw material." A twist of a smile. "Failures, of course. They create nothing but monsters."

The screens hummed their monotone drone as Cloud's fists fell slack, and he stared.

"Those monsters used to be human." His breaths were coming short and shallow, doing nothing to ease the throbbing lightness squeezing behind his eyes. The horns. The gills. Bile stung his throat, flooding his mouth with sour spit. "You let them use  _Soldiers_!" Cloud ripped his sword free, his voice rising into a shriek.

Genesis looked at him, ignoring the blade pointed at him. "They meant to draw rescuers in and shut them in with the monsters." The First drummed his fingers over his knee before glancing toward the door. "They'll wake soon, the monsters."

"Thanks for the warning," Cloud said, twisting his mouth into a sneer. "And what about you? What about Angeal?"

"My friend, do you fly away now?  
To a world that abhors—"

"Shut  _up_!" Cloud screeched. "Don't give me that shit!" He crouched down into his stance, raising his sword in both hands. "If I drag you back with me now," he said, his voice a hiss, "will Angeal follow?"

A thin smile edged its way across Genesis' face. "Do you really have time to be worrying about me," he said, "when you position yourself with monsters at your back?"

Shit. _Shit._  Cloud whipped around, making it halfway through the turn before the impact slammed into him. A croak caught in his throat, and he looked into Geoffreys's vacant eyes.

It started slow, just a trickle of heat prickling at his gut. He dropped his gaze down to the glitter of metal protruding from his side. It was mostly clean, he noted distantly. Searing thumps began to claw up his stomach as his nerves gradually caught up, and the world filtered back into his senses. The scent of metal. The slow touch of Geoffreys's breath on his neck. The burn of blood.

Geoffreys lurched back, ripping the dagger free. Swaying slightly, he stood still, blind eyes looking somewhere through Cloud and out the other side. His bare skin showed patches of red, like it had been chafed by something. Haltingly, Geoffreys raised a hand and scratched down across his shoulder and over his chest. His nails left weeping red blisters.

Cloud staggered, pressing his palm reflexively over the hole. His mouth opened, a quiet gurgle escaping. There was a scream bubbling in his throat. He could feel it surging, seizing his vocal cords. Too tight. Probably why it couldn't get out.

The pain tore through him then, and his knees gave, crumpling him with a hoarse wheeze. Strings of black wavered in his vision. He twisted his neck up. Geoffreys was still standing, unmoving, unseeing. The dagger dangled loosely in his hand. Slowly, a trickle of blood collected into a swollen drop, clinging to the tip. It dropped to the floor with a soft, spongy plop. Cloud's sight blurred like a disturbed puddle.

"Geoffreys." He was—he couldn't— The thundering was inside his skull. "Geoffreys, you in there somewhere?" His voice was a little weedy rasp.

Fuzz. Movement. Gleam of blue light off a blade.

A shout buzzed through his throat and slid into a howl as he wrenched himself into a roll. The dagger's point scraped over the floor, whistling shrilly.

His clothes were heavy. Soaked. Sticky blood. It was weird when it was his. Hotter, like it was still attached to him, still part of his veins.

"Geoffreys!"

His tumble crashed to a halt against the base of a bench, the jolt jarring every bone in his body. Cloud's head snapped back, a sharp keen forcing itself out from between his gritted teeth. Blinking hard, he looked up into a blur. Glittering edge of dagger, smeared with black-red. Macabre caricature of a grin. Descent.

Something was screaming, yowling in his head. Noise. Too much noise; he couldn't hear.

Warmth of leather in his hand.

A roar rent free of Cloud's throat as he ripped his arm up, sword arcing until it pointed toward the ceiling. It sang, sinking jerkily into Geoffreys's chest as he bore down on Cloud. Bone crunched, hollow and splintery. When Geoffreys convulsed, the force nearly dragged Cloud's sword from his hands. His fingers clamped stubbornly around the hilt. His knuckles squelched slickly.

In a lethargic glide, Geoffreys was sliding further up—down, along—the blade. Something pearly was beading off his bare skin. It stretched, stringing out long and thin, and then it dropped and splashed over Cloud's throat. He jerked at the searing sensation, hearing the sizzle of his flesh as the slime ate into it. His mouth opened, soundless and wide.

Cloud tipped onto his side, letting his sword fall. Black—pitchy, true black, not like the diluted grey that filtered through his closed eyelids—oozed over his sight as his vision failed. He heard Geoffreys's body thump to the ground, bean bag slack. Shallow pants scraped his throat, where the frantic flutter of his pulse jumped against his skin. It was slowing.

Maybe it was his perception that was slowing.

A touch on his elbow burned his hypersensitive skin and made his limbs quake.

Pump. Ooze. He was leaking. Heat painting the floor. He wanted to laugh, but he couldn't. Couldn't. He'd have to be breathing for that.

Fuck fuck fuck dying he wasn't gonna couldn't fucking not gonna die here up up UP—

"My friend, your desire  
Is the bringer of life, the gift of the goddess"

The murmured words reverberated in his skull a second before magic pierced him, turning every cell in his body inside out. Blinding agony raced laps up his arms and legs as the torn organs, torn tissues knitted together as quickly as they'd been severed. His mouth opened in a sucking sob as his lungs inflated with freezing, crystal-sharp breath.

"Perhaps a gift, likely a curse." Genesis' voice hummed by his ear. "You might regret receiving it later."

* * *

When Cloud's eyes snapped open, he was alone with Geoffreys's body.

He couldn't have been out for long, not at the rate the body was decaying.

Slime was shedding from the corpse, like his skin was sloughing off and liquefying. The sticky sweet scent of rot dug its way into Cloud's nose and mouth, and he lurched away, lifting himself up onto his hands and knees before he retched. Acid seared the back of his throat as his stomach's contents splattered the floor under his hands. There wasn't much in it, and soon, nothing but a thin string of spit extended from his esophagus to the ground. It stretched and stretched, unwilling to break. Cloud gagged, gasping for air. His stomach spasmed again, hard enough to drive spikes of pain into his chest, and he croaked loudly. Holding himself still, he hacked, his dry lungs crackling. Short breaths whistled in his throat. His eyes burned as he lifted himself up onto his heels and wiped at his swollen lips.

Lifting his uniform vest, he squinted down at the shiny new scar stretching over his belly. It tingled with warning at his touch.

Geoffreys's slack face was turned toward him, the skin bulging as it lost elasticity, unable to support its own weight. From the corners of the sagging eyes, gunk was starting to run. Cloud remembered the man in the forest. The rot that permeated his entire body.

Gritting his teeth until they ached, Cloud lowered his head.

It—the thing looked less human with each passing moment. The slime was pink, blood clumped in black specks. It'd probably go grey later.

He felt empty.

It took him a while to figure out why. It was the resonance. He'd stopped noticing it, turning it into so much background noise, but now that it was gone, it felt like something had been cut out of him.

He didn't even know what it had been, or why it had pointed him straight to Geoffreys.

It had just been so... familiar.

"Geoffreys," he mumbled.

Good Soldier. They always said that, good Soldier. Like it made up for being dead Soldier. Cloud opened his mouth. He should say something.

Watching Geoffreys' face disappear, Cloud clawed at his memory. Of before, when Geoffreys jumped at bugs chirping and acted like he hadn't been born with a sense of humour.

"I..." He knew, if he was honest, that he hadn't given Geoffreys a thought for weeks, not since the first time he saw the man's name on the list of the missing. He screwed his eyes shut, and he swallowed. His mouth tasted foul. His knuckles popped with thick crunches, and he squeezed his shoulders together before he reached for his sword. The materia set into its hilt glimmered. He stopped, his mouth working as his eyes flitted to the body and away again. "Sorry."

The floor was uncomfortably warm when he reached out and used the bench to lever himself up onto rubbery legs. He took a couple of steps, catching himself on the open door's frame when his knees shook. Glancing back at the smear of black, greasy soot on the tile, Cloud gnawed hard at his cheek.

The monsters were made from people. Soldiers. Meant to kill Soldiers.

Nothing but Soldiers around here.

Stumbling for a second when his foot tried to turn under him, Cloud pushed himself off the door frame, and he started to run.

It didn't help at all, saying sorry.

* * *

TBC

**Extra scene that wouldn't ever really happen as long as the author remains sane:**

Blankness surrounded Cloud, white and empty. It was the lack of shadow that was most disorienting. Without depth, the landscape stretched, tissue paper thin under his feet and void of all definition.

With a short sigh, the man sitting at his feet stood, brushing dust Cloud couldn't see from his knees.

He looked up at Cloud, black hair brushing the shoulders of his uniform—First black—and falling into indigo eyes—mako glow.

"Well, you sure fucked that one up," the man said.

Cloud felt the blood drain from his face. "You're the one that keeps talking to me!"

"Yeah, but do you listen?" The man groused.

Cloud spun around. "What is this? Where are we?"

"Hmm." The Soldier glanced around as if noticing the white for the first time. "Your head, probably."

"Why's it empty?" Cloud stared.

The Soldier snorted, shrugging a shoulder. "I dunno. You tell me. Oh wait, you can't. You're too busy  _agonizing_  over everything that goes wrong, like you think you're the only one that can fix it and it's all your fault."

" _What?_ "

"You know, if you're gonna be a hero, you have to do it all the way. It doesn't matter if you don't want to, you _have to_. Because there are people who depend on you. So shape the fuck up, Spike."

"Like you're one to talk, with the way you bounced around like every fucking thing was going to be okay while the shit flew," Cloud snapped. "All you did was make promises you couldn't keep!"

The man froze, watching Cloud with something he couldn't place in his glowing eyes.

"See?" he whispered, finally. "You do remember me."

Then, suddenly, he was moving, and there were hands wrapped around Cloud's head and bony knuckles digging into his crown.

"Ow!" Cloud hissed, twirling around in the blankness as he tried to dislodge the man.

The Soldier laughed, long and loud.

"Ow! Ow  _ow!_  Stop!  _Zack!_  Fuck!"


	9. Rock out Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He's /dead/, Strife!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and settings are property of Square Enix. No profit is being sought from the writing of this fanfiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
> 
> Fuck. I'm not even going to try to push off an excuse. Just. Fuck. I'm sorry.
> 
> Thanks go to Poisonberries for looking this over. And I'm going to shut up now.
> 
> Jan 2015: Big revamp. I hated this one. This entire arc was the main reason I slowed down so much. Thanks go to awesome new beta for pointing out the problems with this chapter.

 

**Part 8**. Rock out Red

 

The ground bucked under Cloud's boots. Through the gaps that were forming in the walls, he could see alarming shifts in the shadows that could only mean the hidden support beams were ripping themselves apart. They groaned, a deep bass nearly beyond the range of human hearing—hyper-enhanced senses or not—but just perceptible enough to make Cloud feel distinctly uncomfortable.

There was a particularly hard jolt, and he pitched forward. His palms stung, slapping into the tiles. Falling debris pattered against his scalp, itching and jabbing at him. A larger lump of something thumped into his back with a hollow thud and made his lungs expel an abrupt hiccup of air. Resisting the urge to cough, Cloud turned the forward momentum of his fall into a roll. He rocketed to his feet and kept running.

He wasn’t sure how this all happened. The underground base had looked decrepit, but more or less structurally sound when he’d left the room with—

death, blood _Genesis_

—the remains.

Then, there’d been some low level rumbling, the ceiling had started shedding dust like dandruff, and it had been some hazy sense of self-preservation that had made him look up, around, and just start _running_.

He'd lost speed. He was getting some horrible stitch in his side, making him gag in short lurches and making his vision waver as if he was on a permanent heat spot, but he couldn't stop to breathe. Not in that sawdust cloud. So he limped on, wrapping an arm around himself tightly.

The grime choked the air, making his eyes burn like he'd walked into a signal flare going off again. He could almost smell the phantom singed hair, but that was stupid, because he’d been horking up dust bunnies for the past five minutes and he couldn’t smell _anything_.

It was pouring into his nostrils and his open mouth, the suspension of dirt and whatever else the base was buried in. It blocked his breath, making his dry tongue swell fat against his teeth. It was thick, heavy. Syrup. Liquid.

A buzz wound up his bones, like someone had reached into his spinal cord and given his nerves a twang. Resonance. Like when he’d stood in front of Geoffreys’s tank and stared into the green, wondering how he’d known that the man was there.

A hum in his head. Wavelengths blending together.

Panic slammed home under his ribs, and he let out a garbled yell. Or tried to.

His voice gurgled, a stream of bubbles escaping his mouth. They were all different sizes, clustering, squeezing and bouncing off each other as they swirled upwards furiously.

Green everywhere.

Acid mako stung his bare skin. Everywhere.

He thrashed, legs kicking out blindly. He couldn’t feel the bottom. Nothing under his feet. Just green.

He tried to scream again, but he didn’t have enough air in his lungs. It poured into his mouth, the mako. His throat burned, some of it slipping past even though he’d closed off his airway. Eyes, nose... Burn. Drowning.

His hands were up in front of him. One palm hit something. Flat, clear, he couldn’t see anything.

No, it was glass. Cold under his skin, and even colder because the mako _burned_ all around him, but it was something to touch at least, something that didn’t slide away from every movement he made, trailing green bubbles.

He made a fist and tried to smash the glass.

The liquid suspending him wouldn’t let him. Not like he could have, the way his muscles were jelly weak and blackness was starting to close in around his vision because he couldn’t hold his breath anymore, and the mako was starting to gush into his mouth because he was going to have to inhalecouldn’t _STOP IT_.

 _Thump_.

Cloud curled in on himself reflexively, cradling his head. He was lying on his side on the floor. Hot, bright pain bloomed in the back of his skull, and he realized, slowly, that he’d cracked it against the tiles when he’d crashed into the wall he hadn’t seen, rebounded, and went over backwards.

The shaking in the ground was starting to settle. He was by the corner, the one he hadn’t noticed as he ran blindly into the turn.

Lying still, he shuddered, and tried to take a breath. He coughed.

_What the fuck had that been?_

His... hallucinations—he was pretty certain they were hallucinations by now—had been dream-like up to this point. He hadn’t actually been there in them, not really. He could see his body, could touch the things that had been around him, but the bit that was _him_ had always sat in the back of his mind, watching. Any sensations had come from far away, like he’d been wearing full-body bubble wrap. He could feel the pressure, distantly, but no texture, nothing immediate.

This had been...

He’d been _there_.

It’d been a mako submersion tank. He’d been inside. The combination of buoyancy—mako was thicker than water—and piped-in current had kept him suspended, floating helpless in place without the leverage to do anything more than claw weakly at the inside of the glass.

And it had been _him_. Not Geoffreys.

Listening to the staccato beat of his heart, Cloud stared into the middle distance.

But that didn’t make any sense. He’d never been in a mako submersion tank.

Had he?

Cloud jerked his head up, the hallway snapping into focus.

The dirt drifting through the air shifted and swirled, thickly opaque in areas before thinning out in response to gusts of air. The pressure-roar of noise was settling to isolated snarls, and finally, through the aftershocks, Cloud heard the voices.

"—fuck McPhee,  _move_!"

Alarm bells started gonging in his head. Sound was garbled still, mixed in with unpleasant sucking pops as his eardrums limped back toward function. He hopped up onto his haunches, spinning around. The tender bit in his side took the opportunity to complain again, and he bit down on the grunt.

There were shadows. Slowly, the wavering shapes settled into muck-blackened figures. Cloud's eyes widened.

It had its back to him, bare skin glistening with the sheen of rot and matted with dust until it was painted grey. When it shifted, the thing that looked like a man, it rippled like the surface of some disrupted pool, bulges and billows of flesh threatening to slough away. It was raising a chipped knife in both hands.

A Third scrabbled at the man's feet, scrambling to push himself back and away. His boots squeaked over the floor, catching traction before slipping again.

Cloud sprang up and forward. The tip of his sword clipped the wall as he swung it over his head, scything through solid rock and making his fingers go numb. He leaned his full weight into the lunge, and when the blade sank into the man's back, the crunch of bone and the oily slither of parting flesh cut through the residual ringing in his ears.

Cloud blinked hard, the film over his irritated eyes gradually receding, and he glanced down at where he'd put his flat sword through the— _monster_ —man's spine. Aim had been a bit off, but the sword was broad enough that it hadn't mattered. He looked up again in time to see the body he'd spit start to sag. The dead weight threatened to rip the hilt from his hands, so he dragged sharply, yanking the sword free. The limp body reeled, hitting the side of the hall and leaving a splatter halo over its head as it fell. Clumps of something that used to be skin clung to the surface, gently slipping downward as it was carried along by long dribbles of viscous fluid.

He could smell it already. Cloud took a step back. His legs shook like the ground was still shuddering.

"Strife!"

He took another step, and his back thumped into something.

Pivoting, he met Robertsson's mismatched eyes. They flickered, dropping to scan him.

Cloud blinked.

He’d followed the Second’s gaze to find a gash over his right shoulder, blood beading slowly out of the pink abrasion. Weird. He hadn’t even felt that.

Dismissing it, he looked up again. Robertsson had stepped back a bit. He seemed to have been satisfied, if the return of his customary slouch was anything to go by.

It was almost involuntary, the way Cloud reached out to drop his hand onto the edge where the armour plates fastened at the Second's shoulder. Everything he knew about the other Soldier pointed to the fact that he was a paranoid ass that hated being touched, but... It was solid under his fingers, metal buckle cold and smooth compared to the pebbled surface of the guard. Real.

Robertsson hadn’t moved. It was probably his way of saying that he got it.

A wide fissure had split the floor, running diagonally down a few feet of corridor. Jagged rock was black under the crumbled tiles. Gaps sliced up the walls like capillary netting, and some ominous grumbling filled the air before more rubble slithered down out of the ceiling.

Cloud squinted against another plume of dirt. "What happened?"

Forenz was standing against the wall, a hand braced on it as he hunched over. He swallowed loudly and growled as he straightened. "Dumbass cast Quake."

There were scuffling sounds as McPhee dragged himself to his feet from where he’d backpedalled away from the rotting man. The Third's helmet was cracked, white parallel lines running down the face, and he pulled it off, scowling. "I said I was sorry, already," he muttered, sounding a bit embarrassed under the defensiveness.

Cloud leaned forward to peer down the chasm. It was deeper than he'd initially thought. "Did you get them, at least?" he said.

"Fuck, yeah, sir."

Cloud snorted.

He couldn't see the body very clearly, slumped in the blackness pooling at the base of the wall, but it was acting a lot like Geoffreys’s did. He'd recognized the way the skin scraped off the bones. The stench was starting to siphon away whatever air was left in the choked tunnel as the body decomposed.

Cloud shook his head, like he was trying to throw off the memory.

He turned away from the fault line McPhee had left in the floor, and he stopped.

The dark was grainy, stained faintly green by mako glow. Shapes, depending on their orientation, were either etched sharply in relief, or faded indistinctly in the shadows.

The body lay still—that was the armour of a Third—an arm bent under his body.  The knob where his elbow strained against his skin was grey chalk pale against the pool spread under him. It gleamed, black and thick, too dark to be red.

"And Jordon?" Cloud said, softly. It was kind of surprising, actually, that he’d made a sound, what with something gripping his windpipe in a fist like that.

Robertsson was still standing behind him, and McPhee shot the Second a tight look before turning to Cloud. "They got him first," he said finally.

Cloud shoved his hands into his pockets before he nodded. He watched the edge of the puddle for a moment, where the blood was visibly congealing, and he pushed his knuckles deep into the folds of fabric. It was just a body. He'd made plenty of them himself. It was just another body, and the men were still watching him, especially McPhee-who-looks-at-Robertsson-first, and there was no reason for the lump dragging his stomach down into his boots. He was thinking. Figuring out their next steps. He definitely wasn't standing here staring at the drying blood that could only be a physical reminder of the fact that he'd been too late. Too fucking  _late_. Again. The lingering taste of bile stung at the back of his mouth, and he swallowed as hard as he could even though his palate still felt like it had been replaced with a wood file, and there was no way in  _hell_  he was going to show them how hard his nails were digging into his palms.

He heard one of the Soldiers behind him take in a breath, like he wanted to say something, but he shook his head. "Come on, we have to keep moving. Check on the other guys." He didn’t want to hear this.

"It was the bastard you killed," McPhee said, glancing at the rotting body and growling.

He didn’t want—

"They jumped us, and when Jordon saw that one, he fucking froze up—"

He didn't want to _hear this_. The knowledge jumped into his head like it had always been there, sharp and brittle, tinny glass echoes in his skull. He didn't want to hear it. He brought up an arm and jerked his hand. "Stop it. Gossip later, McPhee."

"But fuck, sir, the way he—"

"Everyone's got someone he can't fight," Cloud snapped.

McPhee's jaw clacked shut.

Silence steeped back into the air, the awkward, thick type that meant everyone was staring. Cloud laughed shortly, and it tasted bitter on his tongue. "He practically said so."

The words were quiet, mostly to himself. He heard the scrape of armour when Robertsson looked at him for a moment.

Hemmed in by the fault line in the floor, there wasn't a lot of room. The Soldiers were clustered close enough that he could faintly see eddies in the dust when they exhaled. They shuffled when he turned around, and lines of tension cracked the edges of their mouths. McPhee's eyes kept darting back to the decaying body.

Fear. He could smell it, ripe over the rot.

But they were  _Soldiers_. _His_ Soldiers, and he was supposed to—

He was grinding the enamel off his teeth, he noticed.

He'd made a promise. The _Director_ had asked him. And now they couldn't even take Jordon back with them. Not while running. Because he was going to get them out, even if it meant taking apart the rest of this Planet-forsaken country. And here they were, _afraid_ , because he couldn’t even make them feel secure enough that they wouldn’t hesitate before answering him.

Cloud hefted his sword, and he narrowed his eyes. He’d decided.

"Anything else?"

"Sir?" McPhee frowned.

“Anything else to report, Soldier,” Cloud said, facing the man fully. “No,” he raised his voice, and the Third tensed, “Don’t look at Robertsson. I’m asking you, now, if there is anything else you want to tell me.”

McPhee gave him a cornered look.

Robertsson stayed mercifully silent.

“Uh…”

“Were there any more of them?”

Whatever McPhee might have said went up in smoke right about then, because gunfire sprayed down the hall. Bullets drove into the walls and chipped shrapnel from the ground.

Cloud flung himself flat. Gravel bit into his skin as he wriggled to cover behind a section of the floor that had humped up during the Quake spell. He peered down the hall. The muzzle flashes made it hard to discern shapes, but he thought he could make out just a hint of those weird triangular helmets he’d seen some of the Wutai wearing.

"No," Robertsson said, suddenly, raising his voice over the hammering guns.

Cloud scowled, twisting his head to look back at the Second. "No what?"

"No, there weren't more of them." He paused, ducked, and a piece of tile shattered near where his head had been. "But they got Wutai with them," he added unhelpfully.

More rock chips peppered them, stinging Cloud's arms where he'd covered his head. Fuck this. He couldn’t see like this. The next time there was a bit of a lull, he dragged himself up onto his hands and knees. He craned his neck one way before the other. There.

Squeezing himself up against where McPhee was hunched by the makeshift barricade, he thought, drily, that for once he was glad he was kind of short. There was a little gap, there, that he could press an eye up against if he contorted enough.

"Sir?" McPhee rasped.

"Shut up." Cloud squinted through the dust-hung darkness.

He still couldn't see their faces. He could barely make out their shapes, until they opened fire again, and the backwash of light from their gun lances flung their shadows against the wall behind them a moment before the bullets slammed into the rock face. Cloud ducked down again. The retorts from their weapons, the crunch of crumbling stone, it all melded into a soup of sound.

The Wutai gunners themselves were silent, even when one of them broke off his barrage to fumble for another magazine.

"They're just standing there, shooting like they've got ammo stuffed down their pants," Cloud hissed.

Robertsson grunted. "Cover's not gonna last."

Forenz made an indistinct sound, and he pulled his arm in close as he slid down lower to the ground. Blood oozed sluggishly from a thin scrape along his bicep. "Shit," he muttered.

"Forenz?" Cloud said.

The Third wriggled his arm before dropping it dismissively. "I'm fine."

Cloud couldn't help the snort of laughter. Stoic bastard. He’d have to ask the man later why he’d signed up for this little suicide run. He shook his head.

He could ask McPhee for his Quake. There was a chance he could take the floor out from under the gunners. Then again, it was pretty much the same odds as he had for burying them all alive.

They could make a break for it. But the corridor was pretty much a straight shot, and with that many of the Wutai, it was hard to imagine any kind of scenario that had the Soldiers getting out of there unharmed.

Unless they had a distraction.

"Alright, we're getting out of here. You guys go around, try to circle them. I'll head down centre."

His voice hadn’t shaken. Good.

Robertsson made a loud, impatient noise. " _What?_ "

Cloud hissed for silence. "Son of a  _bitch_ , Robertsson—"

"We don't have bullet-proof  _skin_ ," Robertsson argued. Quieter.

"I know," Cloud snapped. "Which is why the element of surprise would have been nice."

"Strife—"

Cloud interrupted this time. "They got Jordon."

He looked at Robertsson, saw the way the man was staring back at him, and something big and gaping opened up somewhere under his feet. He barely felt the fresh shower of shrapnel pelt his back. Over the yawning distance, black specks pirouetting in the corners of his eyes, he watched Robertsson's eyes thin.

"And  _what_ ," the Second said, sounding like gravel was lining his vocal cords, "can you do about that?"

Noise flooded Cloud's ears. He lunged forward, a hand shooting out for Robertsson's collar. Dimly, he registered the green pall to everything, lining every surface. Mako must have surged to his eyes, turning them into macabre green headlights.

Robertsson flinched, barely noticeably, and Cloud froze.

His knuckles slowly creaked into a fist.

"I can get everyone else out," Cloud said tightly.

To his credit, Robertsson hesitated for no more than a second. He leaned in, ignoring the way Cloud's hand was still raised. "By making the riskiest frontal assault in ShinRa history?"

Cloud thought he might have been flattered by the urgency in Robertsson's voice under other circumstances. "I'm not a strategist," he said instead. "I'm a Soldier. Now," his words quickened as he picked up momentum, cutting off whatever Robertsson had been planning to say, "we're going to lose our cover before they run out of ammunition, and I'll be damned if I let us all get gunned down while cringing like civilians against the floor, so if you've got a better plan, I'd fucking  _love_  to hear it." The concrete slab made an ominous cracking sound at his back, as if to prove his point. Cloud eyed Robertsson, ignoring the way he could see McPhee in his periphery, desperately pretending that he wasn't listening to the furious whispers inches away from him.

Robertsson paused for a moment. "Send someone else, then. You're too—"

"I told you," Cloud said sharply. "I'm just a Soldier." He waved a hand and curled his legs under him, tensing. "And I'm faster than the rest of you." He probably had Hojo to thank for that. He shook his head, just a bit, to try to get that disinterested stare out of his mind.

This plan was utter shit.

He knew that.

But they couldn’t stay here. He knew that, too.

At best, the Wutai would shoot to kill, and maybe they’d get lucky shots in that could take out a Soldier with one bullet, but from the haphazard way they were firing, they were probably operating on the principle that plugging the Soldiers with enough lead would be good enough for them. Cloud had been shot before. He wasn’t looking forward to a repeat performance.

At worst, they intended to capture the squad. Leave them alive, but incapacitated, and then... what? Try the experiments out again?

Sweat prickled Cloud’s nape at the memory of the mako tanks. Geoffreys’s eyes had been glazed and unresponsive, but Cloud couldn’t shake the niggling thought that _what if_ —what if the man had been fully conscious the entire time, but unable to move his body? What if he’d been _in there_ , staring out through eyes that wouldn’t take orders?

A shiver ran through him.

What if the resonance had been him calling out?

Cloud shut his eyes.

His hands tightened where he had them propped up on the rubble. If he hesitated any longer, Robertsson was probably going to convince him that he was an idiot.

“On three,” he muttered.

“I swear to fucking god, Strife—“

“Three.”

He leaped.

Behind him, faintly, he thought he heard Robertsson snarl something, but he was already flying.

Adrenaline funnelled through him, pouring molten heat into hollowed bones until incandescence lined his veins and his body felt feather-light. His sight blurred to the sides, tunnelled until he saw nothing but the gunners. They didn't budge. White noise hummed in his ears, hissing and spitting. Then, slowly, lethargically, he saw them move. In molasses slow increments, their gun lances rose.

One muzzle pulled up in recoil, and he tucked his arms in to throw himself into a spiral. Something whined by over his head. The next one sang as it passed his ear, amplified by the way everything was crystal bright to his senses, but he was close enough to see the Wutai's faces now, and they were  _really_ reacting, their eyes widening and mouths falling open, and—holy _fuck move—_ a gun lance shifted toward him. Shit, now  _NOW_.

Cloud kicked out a leg as he spun, the side of his boot connecting with someone's head. The other leg went the other direction, the drag slowing him enough for him to dive out of his leap. He followed through the twist until he'd hooked a knee around one of the gunners' necks and hung off the man's shoulder. Some sharp edge in the Wutai armour dug into a nerve in the back of his leg, but Cloud ignored it. He ripped his weight backward, dragging the man along in his roll. The gunner tumbled when he unlatched himself, and Cloud heard the crunch when the man slammed into the wall behind him. The crook of his knee stung like the pins and needles of hell were driving into the groove.

And then time caught up, sound hit him like a slab of cement, and Soldiers descended like some sort of wrathful host from both sides of the split in the floor.

Rocking to a crouch, Cloud's hand rose to his sword reflexively, but the blade of a gun lance was already descending toward his head. He dropped into another roll and came up under the lance, too close for the man to switch to a guard. Slapping the shaft out and away as he rose, Cloud tilted his head. The man's nose made a damp splintering sound when Cloud's crown smashed into it.

The man reeled, bringing his lance down in a blind slash as he stumbled backward.

But Cloud had his sword now. Metal rasped against metal. The blade in his hands glowed faintly green before his face as he stared at the gunner.

In the corner of his eye, he saw the soldier’s weapon pinwheel through the air. He’d hit it pretty hard when he disarmed the man. It clattered to the ground.

Blood coated the man's wrist when he swiped it over his busted lips, but he didn't look at it, choosing instead to bare his teeth at Cloud. They were stained red, trickles running over and around his mouth. He spat, tiny bubbles foaming and sticking to him.

Drops of blood slung off into the murk when the man snarled, "You think you're all that, huh? _Soldier?_ "

"Strife?"

"You think you're fucking better than us?"

Cloud watched the man's mouth twist. From somewhere far away, he heard Robertsson's voice. At least, in the cotton muffling his head, he thought it was Robertsson's voice.

"Strife, what the fuck are you doing?"

"There isn't even a word for how wrong you are." Red grin. "None of it's yours. The strength, the speed. None of it. You're nothing, you little  _failure_. You'll never belong. You're just a useless, blind,  _delusional_  wash-out." For all the venom, the man's voice was calm, low, but then, it rose. "You know it's true. You'd know it was true if you'd just wake up!"

It was pitched to piercing, driving through the mush and bloody mud plugging Cloud's ears.

"Wake up!"

"Goddammit, Strife!"

The Wutai gunner's eyes burned, miniature infernos.

" _Wake up!_ "

_No!_

His head roared, stuffed and unable to spill, his skull cracking under the pressure. The light ripped sky high.

"Strife!"

Blackness.  _What? He couldn't— He was—_

"—waking up?"

_There are hands on his face. They flay his skin, boil and blister with their heat._

"Hey! Come on! Get over here!"

_Voices. They drill into his water-logged brains, bursting, popping._

_He seizes, every muscle in his body ripping with the tension. He can't breathe, can't move. Spit pours down his throat, draining into his windpipe. Choking. He can't breathe. He can't touch. His hands won't move. He opens his mouth. Maybe. Maybe he's not, and it falls open, and he's drowning in his breath. His limbs, joints pull even tighter, trying to snap his bones. He shakes._

"Shit! He's going to kill himself!"  _The voices echo, shrill._  "Grab his legs!"

"What?"

_His mouth is open still._

" _Do it!_ "

_There are hands on his skin. They burn._

_He's screaming, or maybe it's just his flesh that's screaming and his mouth is cranked open, voice clamped shut, his jaw locked tight enough to snap._

"Cloud, come on. Come on! Wake up!"

_The pain is swallowing him, eating him._

"Wake  _up_!"  _The side of his face flares_ —

And then the pain vanished so quickly it left a hollow ache.

Cloud blinked. He stared up at the bowed ceiling, its cracks leaking clods of black dirt.

He tested the inside of his mouth, probing at the back of his gums with his tongue. "Fuck, Robertsson, I think you knocked a tooth loose."

There was a grunt. "Bitch to someone who cares. What the hell's wrong with you?"

Pulling his elbows in and shoving, Cloud pried himself off the ground. He looked around, squinting. One of the Wutai sat across from him, slumped against the wall, his neck twisted at an odd angle. Another was face down in a shallow crater that was slowly filling with dark fluid. Liquid tension was driving the stain up the skin on his cheek like a creeping mask.

On his other side, the man who'd started screaming at him lay on his back. Robertsson must have coated his daggers with fire because the hole gouged through his chest was dry, cauterized and stinking. A slow dribble was still running out of the side of his nose.

Cloud dragged himself to his feet, wiping gravelly spit from his mouth.

He hadn’t been expecting that one.

The visions, or whatever they were, didn’t usually happen so close together. Not like he knew what triggered them anyway.

“Strife.”

That one had been different from the hallucination about being in a mako tank, though. The mako tank had been sharper, more in focus. The other one had just been a slab of pain flattening him to the ground.

So, what? The mako tank was more real?

A memory?

"Strife," Robertsson said again.

"What?" he rasped.

Robertsson stared at him, and Cloud shrugged jerkily.

"What's it to you?" he said sharply. "You heard what he said. He was batshit as fuck."

Robertsson was still eyeing him, his mouth tight. "Who, the Wutai? All I heard was a bunch of gobbedygook in gobbedygook language." His eyebrows furrowed. "Since when do you speak Wutai?"

His mind went blank.

What?

He realized that he’d stopped breathing.

He opened his mouth.

When had it started, then? Cloud stared at the ground. Had he not even noticed when everything around him had stopped being real?

Was _this_ real?

Robertsson was still staring at him.

"Just hearing things, I guess," he said, after a while.

"Shit, Strife—"

"Go help the others," Cloud snapped.

The other Second stopped.

He’d pitched it like an order, the same tone he’d used on McPhee earlier. From the look he was getting, Robertsson had noticed.

Then, Robertsson growled as he spun away. His boots clunked heavily against the floor.

Cloud lingered over the dirt patches over his knees as he brushed himself off. His eyes never focussed, though. The ghosts of the voices were still waltzing merrily around his head. " _Wake up!_ " Those words in particular had left a weird echo in his skull. A dim, small room plastered itself to the back of his retinas. Warm brown eyes. _Familiar_. Something acrid seared at the back of his throat.

Wake up.

He pinched himself hard through the fabric of his uniform pants. Just in case.

It stung like a bitch.

* * *

Cloud leaned into his sprint. His legs prickled with the familiar sensation of mako driving through the fibres of his muscles, pushing the contractions to completion by supplying raw energy without the need for oxygen. It sounded… inhuman, but it wasn’t the perfect system. Nothing was free. He could take what he needed at the time, but he’d have to pay it back later. There was no getting out of that. But for now…

He ran, taking a corner at full skid. Through the clash of metal, the shouts, he could only hear one set of pounding footsteps behind him. From the sounds of it, he’d been right. The group he’d left behind had been discovered.

He just hoped that his luck would hold, and no one would ask how he'd known. Somehow, he didn't think the claim that he could hear them through twenty miles of tunnel would satisfy anyone. But that was all he could give.

"Robertsson!" he bellowed, pointing.

The one that had been trying to kill McPhee had sounded the same, actually. Some kind of weak, soundless call.

Cloud shook his head like a dog.

Quit it. This wasn't something he could really figure out. He didn't know what the experiments had done to the subjects, and it wasn't as if Soldiers were about to win any awards for normalcy in the first place. For all he knew, they'd been aiming for some fucked up form of telepathy. It wouldn't be surprising.

He could see them now. The boiled egg skin glistened. Slime coated the blades. The room was triangular, fed by one hall to the backs of the Soldiers and branching out to spreading corridors on the other side. The things Genesis had called monsters clogged the other path, spearing and breaking against the line of Thirds.

There was a ragged grunt of acknowledgement, and a line of fire shot past him, curving to burst against a cluster of the shambling experiments. The smell of cooked sulfur pervaded the air, stinging unpleasantly.

In the corner of his eye, he saw heads whip around towards him and Robertsson. Mako eyes blazed.

There was a roar of noise. It could have been a cheer, or it could have been enraged shouts. Either way, the Thirds raised their weapons again and lunged into their charges like the wind-up keys on their backs had been given a good twist.

The hilt of his sword was warm and smooth under his palms when he brought it up and around. The darkness split, and orange light belched from the blade like it had sucked up all the energy from the atmosphere around it before spewing it back out with enough force to set the molecules screaming.

Spinning his hold into a backhanded grip, Cloud yelled, swinging forward.

Magic shaped the pressure from the attack into scything blades, funnelling the air into a wide whirlwind that clawed into the bodies and lifted them off their feet. The force pushed them backward, giving the cluster of Thirds enough leeway to regroup around him as he shouldered his way to the front.

That particular move had the potential to be more debilitating, but not here, underground, and not surrounded by people who could be caught up as collateral damage. As it was, Robertsson cussed loudly, boots scraping over the floor as he dug his weight down into his duck.

Cloud kicked out, and the knife slashing toward his face clinked and bounced on the floor. The man's wrist bent backward with a sharp snap. He brought his sword down, just missing when the experiment dodged backward. This left him off balance, though, unable to move when Cloud continued stepping forward. Pivoting into the upswing, he sheared through an arm. Something viscous splattered to the ground, and Cloud scrambled out of the way. His skin still withered uneasily with the memory of the last time he'd gotten hit by the stuff.

Catching another down-blow on the edge of his blade, he twisted his wrist to jam the hilt of his sword into the man's face and knock him back.

The overextension sent a stab of pain shooting through his side as he yanked on the fresh scar tissue, and Cloud hissed, falling back and fighting the urge to hunch over it.

"Sir!"

A solid weight connected with his back and jostled him to the side, and he watched a gloved fist whip past his head and collide with the temple of one of the monsters, sending him reeling.

Cloud turned his head to meet Timms' eyes. His mouth twitched, and he nodded at the Third's grin.

Somewhere behind him, he could hear the swell in the yelling. Metal whined through the air, biting deep and fast. The others had caught up.

Cloud tapped the outer edge of his curled hand on Timms' shoulder and bared his teeth as he stepped away to raise his sword again.

It felt wrong, how easily the bodies of the monsters gave under the edge of a blade. Their skin split like overripe peach flesh, splashing and spilling the necrotic pus barely contained under their shells. Thick yellow fat clung together, stained pink by the mush of their tissues, spreading jelly thin. It splattered to the ground, laying treacherous traps wherever Cloud placed his feet. Slime slipped out of a tear his sword made running through the belly of one of them—could have been the remains of organs, could have been acid soup—and poured down toward his legs. It splattered on the ground as Cloud danced backward out of the way. He windmilled and scuttled for balance when he stepped on a patch of slick fat that coated the soles of his boots and tried to rip his legs out from under him.

Under the waxy gleam, their faces remained intact, mouths slack and eyes drooping pinpoints. The worst part, though, was that the mako was still there, in their eyes. It was obvious in the dark. Less so when Robertsson really started letting loose with the fire, but…

There was no way the others hadn’t noticed.

They seemed to be following his lead, at least.

Cloud focussed his sight on their hands. Not the faces. He couldn't look at the faces. It made it easier to stop thinking about what—who—they might have been before all this. They weren’t Soldier, not anymore. Soldiers were taught not to broadcast their attacks that badly with their movements. He ducked under a swing and whipped his sword up.

The Third beside him slipped, pitching backward with a shout, and Cloud twisted his shoulder into the man's trajectory. The Third's weight slammed into his arm, and as the Soldier pivoted to latch on to the proffered hand, Cloud raised his sword and stepped into his slash.

Ribs crunched, and the blade caught on bone for a moment before Cloud yanked it free.

Then it happened.

In some hidden part of his mind, Cloud realized, he’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop. It had been too easy. The experiments didn’t move that quickly, not with the decay eating at their innards, and once their simplistic attack pattern became clear, the threat level dropped down to negligible pretty damn quickly. They were _strong_. The rot hadn’t robbed them of that. But then again, so were the Soldiers.

There was a dirty gleam of steel in the corner of his eye. He saw the movement before he heard the scream. The Third who'd slipped made a muffled sound when Cloud abruptly pulled away.

The other man that Timms had pulled out of the way had his mouth open.

Cloud was yelling something, too. He couldn't hear it. Probably nothing intelligible.

He swung, the edge of his blade passing through one of the monsters' necks so fast that it tore instead of sliced. The head catapulted away, bouncing wetly when it hit the floor, and the force of the blow sent the rest of his body flying to the side. His grip never loosened, ripping the dagger clenched in his hand from Timms' chest as he fell.

Cloud caught the Third with clumsy hands as he sagged. Timm's blood was scalding and slick, squishing between the gaps around his fingers. Dark bubbles poured out as air from pierced lungs forced its way out of the edges of the gash.

Fuck fuck fuckfuck _fuck_!

Something in his head was raging. Partly at Lazard, for sending him this fucking little _idiot_. Mostly, though, it was at himself.

Timms' eyes were wide, fixed and staring straight. His knees hit the ground. Heat soaked through the thick fabric.

Cloud's sword clanked as its tip hit the ground and his hand shifted to grope blindly at the spheres studding its hilt.

Attack magic, useless. Command, fucking  _useless_.

Then a materia sang into his palm. Full-Cure.

It shuddered as he shoved magic into its shell, humming like it was considering splintering in his hands. He ignored it, driving the spell into the Third's chest.

The ripped flesh blazed green, and then it subsided again, still. The magic hadn’t caught.

"Fuck, Timms, you little  _shit_!" Cloud snarled, and he cast again.

His breath caught barbs in his throat as he saw the sword coming over his shoulder, hewing down toward his head. He gripped the hilt of his own, twisted it up and around and _knowing_ that it wasn’t going to get there in time, but—

A crash resounded over him, but the anticipated bite of steel never came. He craned his neck. Robertsson's daggers were wedged deep in the monster's drooping arm. The Second strained, his boots braced against the slime-crusted tile as he leaned into his shove.

Robertsson's head twisted briefly toward him. "What are you  _doing_?" he howled, louder than Cloud had ever heard him yell.

"Buy me another second!" Cloud shouted over the keening sound the monster was making.

" _The fuck do you think I am?_ "

Green light gathered around his hands again, the magic thrashing and gnawing at his hands. There was a sizzling sound as the glow spiked. It died out again.

His teeth were grinding together. The smell of blood was thick. Nausea was starting to eat at his gut.

He cast again.

"Strife!"

Metal clanged over his head.

Fullcure did nothing if the recipient was dead.

His eyes burned, desert dry, and the noise beat mercilessly against his ears. His tongue felt like it had been crusted with scales of rusted metal.

He cast again.

The blood was warm under his hands.

His fingers were blistering.

He couldn't tell if the green was from the magic or from the mako slopping over his pupils and draining into his eye sockets.

"He's  _dead_ , Strife!"

Timms started to breathe.

Every single cell in Cloud's body was raw hamburger, fine grind, from the torrents of magic that had sizzled through him as conduit, his finger tips were dead weight dragging at his joints, but shit Timms was breathing and clawing at his chest where the tear was and writhing, but fucking _breathing_.

Robertsson made a strangled sound, but when he called out again, he was quieter. "Any day now, Strife!"

Cloud surged to his feet, and yanked back the first Soldier he could reach. It was McPhee. The Third stumbled, but he was already pressing a potion into the man's hand.

Cloud darted in front of him, hurdling a slumped body and giving McPhee a quick shove backward as he passed.

"Take care of him!" he bellowed, swinging down. The hand that had been grasping at him parted from its wrist with a thick schlupping sound. It plopped to the ground like a discarded beanbag, and Cloud hopped it, bringing his sword up and around.

* * *

The grass was damp, and it prickled uncomfortably at Cloud's neck.

He ignored it, stretched flat on his back, his arms folded over his baked eyes. His right hand was still spasming erratically. Actually, his entire body was starting to shake as the mako flushed away and the muscle fatigue set in. His chest seized up, and he brought a forearm over his mouth as he hacked into it. Lifting it again when the coughs passed, he squinted at the flecks of red sticking to his skin.

Shit, the magic had fried his lungs.

He dropped his arm again, swiping it over the side of his uniform.

It'd heal with time.

The rest of him felt like one of those two-ton army transports had trundled over him before putting itself into reverse, just for good measure.

He heard the footsteps approach him through the throbbing in his ears. When their owner didn't say anything, he shifted to uncover an eye.

Robertsson was slouching by his knee, his face unreadable.

Cloud took a slow breath to calm the itch in his throat. "Status?"

Robertsson didn't say anything for a moment, letting the awkward quiet build.

The, as if he’d come to a decision one way or another, he slanted his eyes toward Cloud. "Just Jordon," he said.

Cloud dropped his head back again, looking up at the crisp glint of stars through the trees overhead. The breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding came out in a loud whoosh. "Right."

There was a hastily smothered groan, and Cloud glanced around. One of the Thirds was testing his arm. From the swelling around the wrist, it was badly sprained. Just past him, Timms was leaning against a smooth boulder that sat under the roots of one of the gnarled trees. His mouth was open as he gulped at the night air, and a hand was pressed against the angry inflammation visible through the gash in his uniform.

Cloud twisted, arching his back. When they'd gone far enough, and he'd been pretty sure they weren't being followed, he'd called a rest stop and flopped into the closest patch of grass. He hadn't removed his sword's harness before flattening himself to the ground. He'd only unlatched a couple of the clasps so that he could shift the whole thing over to the side. Dumbass thing to do. It was digging into his side, no matter how much he contorted.

Now that he was taking stock, all the clamours were starting up again. His ribs were squealing. When he rotated his shoulders, the joints ground like warped gears in their sockets.

He swallowed the sigh because it would only make him cough, and he tilted his head back to eye Robertsson. "Did your group find anything?"

"Tch." Robertsson snapped his tongue against his teeth. "Jack shit,” the Second reported, “just a bunch of empty rooms before we got jumped by those fuckers. One of them gutted Jordon, we got a couple of them, and then McPhee busted out the ball-shaker."

Cloud snorted when McPhee—it was probably McPhee—made a distressed noise somewhere out of his line of sight.

"What about you?" Robertsson said shortly.

Cloud pulled his mouth tight. He'd been considering what to tell them. Maybe somehow make it a hair less distasteful. He'd come up with fuck all.

As the silence dragged out, his treacherous mind wandered. Angeal had always been good at knowing exactly what to say to keep up morale. Angeal had brains. Honest charisma. And he was—

_"Odin's fucking balls, Spike, stop it."_

—he was losing it.

But he wasn’t going to lie. Not to these guys.

A brief twitch pulled at the side of his mouth, and then he swung himself up, folding his legs in front of him. The back of his vest was damp, icy against his skin. Slowly, he loosened his fingers, staring at them until they slackened against his knees, and then he looked up. "I'm scrapping the mission," he said. "We're getting out of here. There's no one left to take back."

Robertsson's breath hissed between his teeth. "You sure?"

"They were never holding hostages to begin with. The Wutai took Soldiers to run experiments on them. They were trying to recreate the process that ShinRa uses to produce Soldiers. And they all failed."

He watched while Robertsson's eyes flickered.

"What do you mean failed?"

Cloud's hand dropped to the matted grass at his side. The blades bent under his fingers before springing back, poking out through the gaps around his hand. He shut his eyes. "We found Geoffreys. He was in a mako submersion tank in a lab, surrounded by rows of other tanks." He looked up. "Every one of them was occupied. Whoever they'd put into the other tanks, they'd... I don't know. Mutated."

There was a sound behind him, and Cloud turned to see Timms tip onto his knees and lean forward. "You mean, the monsters..."

Cloud nodded sharply. "Geoffreys still looked human." He scowled. "Fuck, he looked fine. Alive."

"But then—"

"I killed him," Cloud said. The grass ripped under his glove. In the quiet, his breath was harsh in his throat, and he dropped the tuft of roots and dirt clenched in his hand. "When we pulled him out, he was a vegetable, right up the point where he tried to knife me." It made soft plopping noises as it hit the ground. "He was rotting from the inside out," Cloud said quietly. "Just like the ones that attacked you. When we were searching the base, we found signs of some sort of attack. The Wutai must have abandoned the place after their experiments failed, and the results turned violent. They were going to let the experiments kill whatever rescue team turned up." He scanned the Soldiers watching him. McPhee was gnawing on his lip, but otherwise, no one moved. "There's no one left."

"So," Timms said dully, "the monsters. They were Soldiers, too?" His face was white, maybe from attempting to hold back the wince as he leaned back against the stone behind him. Maybe from the memory of the silent rows of tanks.

Cloud frowned, and then he shook his head. "I don't think so. They were probably people they were trying to enhance. Whatever they were doing, I think Soldiers are resistant to it, maybe from prior exposure to mako, and that's why they kept looking like humans. It was the other people, the ones who hadn't had the treatments before, that reacted so badly." He stared at his boots as he thought. Under the grime, the dirt ground into the slick crud he'd stepped in, the toe was already wearing away. He didn't lift his feet high enough off the ground sometimes, when he walked, he noted absently. In the background, where he did his actual thinking, the pieces were snapping, clicking as they dropped into place. It was making him lightheaded. "The mako tanks maintained them," he said, softly. "And once they were taken out, they began to degrade. After that, maybe there was a trigger, maybe their fuses just ran out. They go berserk."

A grey haze was spreading from the horizon, just seeping up over the treeline and eating into the black overhead. Just before dawn, nothing was active. The wind had died, too. It made their voices sound louder.

"Then..."

Cloud watched McPhee as the Third leaned forward.

"So if we can stop their triggers, take them back to Midgar, they could be healed?"

It hurt, like looking into a mirror, seeing that hope. He'd probably looked just like that, back when he'd found Geoffreys, before he'd... Cloud pressed his hands together. When he exhaled, a thin plume of condensation curled for a moment in front of his eyes. "No," he said. "We can't."

McPhee's face was blank for a second, and then his expression contorted. "Sir, these people—"

"They’re not people anymore, McPhee. We can't afford the risk."

Cloud stayed seated when the Third surged to his feet. "But you just  _said_  that—"

"McPhee!" Forenz snapped, standing.

For a moment, nothing moved. Over McPhee's dirt-crusted shoulder, Cloud could see the other Soldiers watching, their faces washed grey by the encroaching dawn. Then, the Third slowly straightened to attention, and he lowered his glowing eyes. The man saluted rigidly.

Cloud pulled himself up to his feet. "Get ready to move out," he said, his voice low and steady. He paused, looking at McPhee’s pinched face. His glare was fixed on the grass beside Cloud’s boots.

When Cloud reached out to grip the Third’s shoulder, it must have been a bit harder than he’d intended because the man flinched. He pretended not to notice.

“I’m not letting any of you die, McPhee.”

Mako eyes snapped up again.

He caught Robertsson's eye and jerked his chin toward the forest. Behind him, he was aware that McPhee was still staring at him. The long strands of the grass tried to tangle themselves around his boots as he walked, and they tore with slick snaps.

When he stopped, he'd lost track of how far he'd gone. The slow crunch of footsteps still followed him.

Air whistled out between the gaps in his teeth when Cloud slapped his palms against his eyes and ground down. He dragged upward, tangles in his hair snagging on his gloves and stinging as they ripped free. His eyes still closed, he said, "We can't afford dead weight when we run."

Robertsson hummed.

"Not when the dead weight's trying to kill us." The scar, where Geoffreys had stabbed him, sent a flush of heat up his side.

"Yeah."

Ha. Cloud dropped his hands. Robertsson probably wasn't the one that needed convincing, anyway.

He turned around. "This was one of Genesis' projects," he said.

Robertsson stiffened.

"He was here. Genesis. He, just, I don't know. He wanted to talk or something."

"Why?"

"He told me he was the one who gave all the shit we found to the Wutai. The tanks, the experimental data. He said they kept the experiments going after he withdrew his support, and that's when they took the Soldiers. What does that mean about how long this has been going on before the Fort Tamblin hit?"

Robertsson's hands had clenched. "Shit. During the war?"

Cloud shook his head. "I don't think Godo Kisaragi knew about this. Most of Wutai probably didn't know about this. Genesis was searching for something. Maybe he found it. Maybe it's the reason Angeal left."

"So you think Genesis ditched the Wutai because they failed? Or he got something else he wanted out of it?"

"He was using them. He didn't give them everything they needed to make Soldiers. He probably fed them fake info through the whole thing."

Robertsson's scar whitened when his scowl grew. " _Why?_  Like he kept some kind of loyalty to ShinRa?"

"Hell if I know. He never said a word to me when I was on the days I had to shadow Angeal. I didn't think he gave a flying fuck about ShinRa." Robertsson was still watching him, and Cloud sighed. His sword harness was still loose, even after he'd redone the clasps. The straps had probably gotten tugged out of place. He yanked on them. "Either way, I'm going to find out what's going on. No matter what Angeal wants or thinks he wants, running away like—"

"Strife, why do you keep doing that?"

Cloud stopped. The taste of the dust in the base was still plastered to his tongue. His mouth was too dry to spit. "What?"

"Talking about Angeal."

Cold spread out from the base of his spine. "What?"

"I get that he was important to you, and I get that his desertion was unexpected, but you're taking it goddamn personally."

Cloud didn't say anything. His fingers were still tucked in unto the straps of his harness. The leather was digging into them.

Robertsson eyed him for a long moment, and then he pressed his lips flat. "Look, Strife, none of us thought Angeal would leave. I've worked with him as well—"

"Stop it."

"Strife—"

Cloud swung around. "It's none of your fucking business!"

He was shaking, he noticed, somewhere quiet in the back of his mind.

From the way Robertsson's eyes slowly widened, the Second was coming to the wrong conclusion. Cloud bit back the laugh because he just  _knew_  it was going to go hysterical. "Robertsson," he said, shaking his head, "it wasn't like that. Angeal was..." He gestured vaguely, helplessly. "A friend." He scowled, looking up. The sky was getting bright through the trees, and every damn feathered thing was screeching at the top of its lungs by now. "My first friend."

Robertsson snorted incredulously, and Cloud snapped his eyes back. The Second was still staring at him in disbelief. "The hell are you talking about, Strife? You collect friends like trading cards. You have since you first swaggered into Midgar like you belonged there."

... what? "What? I've never been popular."

"You're nuts. You went through Basic with top scores from day one. I couldn't go anywhere without hearing them gush about Strife this and Strife that. It was fucking disgusting."

"I—" Cloud stopped. Shit. It was happening again. He remembered... "Well, they're not exactly real friends, right?" he mumbled unconvincingly. It wasn't even the petty kids' harassment like back home. Soldiers sling the word "bastard" around like rock candy, anyway. It was the way they just  _ignored_  him. Because he didn't matter.

His memories didn't match.

_Wake up!_

Cloud refused to flinch.

He heard Robertsson shift. "Strife—"

"It's fine. Stop harping," Cloud interrupted, pulling his mouth into whatever he could manage of a smirk. Like his stomach wasn't doing terrified flips.

Robertsson rolled his eyes, but subsided.

"Take the team out of here," Cloud said. His pulse was doing a staccato dance, kicking spiked heels into his collar. He dug a thumb into it, the dull pain spreading like mercury gel. He took in a long breath, feeling the residual gumminess as his ears slowly cleared. "Start heading to the pickup point. I'll catch up to you within two hours at the most."

The Second pulled his mouth crooked for a moment, and then he frowned. "What are you going to do?"

"Clean up." Cloud shut his eyes tightly. When he opened them, Robertsson was still watching him. "Robertsson."

"What?"

"Why do you follow me?" he said flatly.

Whatever Robertsson had been expecting, it apparently hadn't been that question. The Second blinked rapidly. "I thought you'd be an overconfident, tit-suckling write off," he said eventually. He paused to snort at Cloud's expression. "You weren't."

"The hell, Robertsson—"

"You inspire loyalty," Robertsson interrupted. He shrugged lazily.

Cloud let the words hang, nothing but filmy wisps of air. They fanned the warmth licking under his skin. Bright. Gratitude. His mouth contorted. It was a pathetic try at a smile, but _fuck_ —

The other Soldier watched him unapologetically.

"Right," Cloud said finally, tugging again at his sword. "I'll be back soon." He paused, and then he nodded. "Robertsson," he said quietly.

"Yeah, I got it." The Second's eyes flickered over Cloud's shoulder in the direction they'd come, where the Thirds clumped unseen under a gap in the trees. He glanced back at Cloud and tipped his head briefly before he walked toward the other Soldiers.

* * *

The soot was greasy on the floor. The movement of gases from the heat of the magical fire had shaped it, twisted it into curlicues. It had drifted, some kind of wide spray pattern that looked like it had been stuffed into a balloon and dropped from the sky.

There was still a hint of red in the dark paste.

Heat diffused slowly into the still air as Cloud stepped by, sending brittle flakes spiralling upward in his wake. One of the corridors, the one they hadn't taken initially during recon, was scorched black to the ceiling. He stopped for a moment in front of it, the caustic scent of seared flesh lingering in his nose, and he walked down the other path.

The Firaga was warm against his palm, where sweat was making it slip down lower in his grip. It clicked softly when he pressed into a slot on his sword's hilt, and he scraped his hand down his leg.

As he kept walking, he thought to himself that this was retarded. But he kept going.

He'd arrived with every intention of feeding fire through the tunnel entry until he'd burned through the foundations holding the rat warren up. Crushing the halls with a couple of tonnes of dirt and rock.

He picked up his pace, the thump of his boots on the tile echoing murkily down the length of the corridor. The debris was absorbing the sound in some places and bouncing it off in random directions in others. He vaulted a fallen beam.

Fuck, this was retarded.

The place was probably going to come down on his head. He wasn't going to survive that, no matter what his mako to blood ratio was after Hojo had stuck him with that needle.

But then the tightness, the questions stuffing his chest cavity would clamp harder together. It already felt like there was a bowling ball in his stomach.

He should turn around and leave.

Cloud kicked off a mound of dirt, his legs pumping as he hurtled through the air. His ears thrummed at the activity. Dust plumed, sharp little pricks slapping into his face.

He always knew that he was retarded.

He paused at the branch, where he'd sent Robertsson down the other leg just a couple of hours ago. He could see the floor for a few steps. After that, shattered slabs of flooring listed crookedly, half sunken into the holes. Past those, the hall was packed solid, dirt and roots mixed in with specks of white ceiling plaster. The walls seemed to bow outward, crushed by force of the cave in.

Exhaling sharply, Cloud narrowed his eyes, turned to the other branch, and he kept running.

He was halfway down the hall studded with living quarters when the blade whipped out at him at head level. Swallowing the shout, Cloud let his knees collapse. The weapon sang by over his scalp. He slid on momentum, legs folded under him, and he tilted his weight until his skid took him into a sharp arc and he was staring at sallow skin over a sinking back.

This one had been fucking quiet as it snuck up on him.

Digging his boots into the grit coating the floor, Cloud launched himself into a leap, bringing his legs up into a tuck and yanking his sword free from his harness. His feet made contact with the man's shoulders first, a second before the tip of his sword bit into the back of his neck.

He bore down, the force of his jump sending the man sprawling. Softened flesh turned to mush under the soles of his boots, skin parting like water-logged paper. There was a damp crunch, and his sword drove into the tiles. Jagged cracks shot out from the sides of the man's head, where it was flattened to the ground.

He straightened, stepping off. The flesh sucked at the soles of his boots, and sharp ends of snapped ribs scratched at his heels. Yanking his sword free when it stuck, he shook it to dislodge the chunks clinging to the blade.

Cloud pulled his eyes away when they skipped to the man's head again. He dragged a hand over the back of his neck, turning back down the hall.

The man had black hair like Travers'.

The curls of relief dragged along the sourness of guilt as he started to run again.

Wrong build, though.

* * *

Cloud flattened his hands over the keys and leaned forward, shutting his eyes. The machines beeped shrilly, protesting the input overload. Wincing, he pulled away, tipping back onto his heels and letting his head fall backward.

The room with the bank of consoles had sat identical to the way he'd left it. The screens had still been blinking on the last passkey prompt.

His blood had caked on the ground.

He resisted the urge to rub his eyes raw. They were already dry enough, muck collecting in the corners.

The Wutai had been surprisingly conscientious in their records. They'd detailed every variation of their infusion formula, listing the manufacture procedures and describing exactly what happened to the subjects. The horns, in particular, had taken three weeks to grow. There'd been a side-note to that file, cautioning that the subject should be restrained to prevent self-harm due to the pain involved in the growth.

Whoever had written it had sounded concerned.

He wished he knew who the writer was, so he could punch a hole through the experimenter's gut and then hover over him being  _concerned_.

Each subject had been assigned a letter according to how the formula was delivered, starting with "A" for intravenous injections. Then they were numbered. Most of the letter codes had stopped abruptly after the first batch of recipients. Concise little notes explained why. The one for intramuscular injections had had a photo attached, showing the way the flesh had sloughed off a leg, leaving mottled grey bone draped with ripped, piss-coloured remnants of skin. Submersion tanks was letter "G", the only one that continued past the first hundred. The last file had been labelled G694.

Cloud opened his eyes. The glare from the screens nearly made him snap them shut again.

They must have been underground for years. Ever since the war had become a distinct possibility, and everyone had actually started hearing about the project called “Soldier”.

G694 had been a Soldier. They'd taken down his tag ID.

There was a blinking switch on the base of the dashboard. He'd found it earlier, when he'd been trying to figure out how to shut off most of the screens. It'd been pretty obvious why there were so many of them when he'd flipped it.

He touched it again, and the monitors blinked black for a second. When they turned on again, feed from dozens of different cameras flickered to life. A quarter of them showed nothing but snow. Probably the ones from the hall that had collapsed. The rest displayed static screens, cameras trained on long rooms filled with nothing but rows and rows of standing tanks. From the angles and distances the cameras had been set to, Cloud couldn't see inside them. Not really. Every so often, there was a hint of movement as something brushed up against the glass of the portals.

One of the shapes had looked like a spread hand.

Something tight was gnawing at the inside of his ribs. It could have been some kind of warped gratefulness at not finding Travers' ID on the list. It could have been disappointment. It was hard to tell.

He didn't know what he would have done if he'd found it, anyway. He shouldn't have looked in the first place.

His PHS was a sharp lump at his hip. He ran a thumb over it, its brushed surface warm from contact with his skin. He could transfer the ID data to it, take back a list of prisoners. Have something to tell the people waiting behind.

He screwed his eyes shut, raising the hand clenched around the PHS, and its edge jabbed into his forehead.

What would he fucking say? That they had to be put down like dogs? Oh, don't worry. They barely felt a thing.

Cloud grimaced at the silent screens. He slipped the PHS into his pocket slowly before he stepped back and raised his arm, wrapping his gloved fingers around the hilt of his sword. He bit down on the urge to draw. Can't. Don't.

He'd gotten a lot of "can't" and "don't." Fuck tons of them. They'd drilled into his skull, wrapped around his head so hard they'd left imprints.

ShinRa would want these records. ShinRa would shunt them into tidy little bureaucratic boxes and put neat stamps on the files before shutting them and packing them away until there was nothing left but a row of names on a stone. There would be shiny, probably expensive medals handed out. Closure.

A Soldier's honour. Angeal had said it enough times. Honour.

Die for the company —honour.

Be something— _monster, whisper-soft_ —so different that the fear and the awe blend together and start tasting exactly the same.

Fucking honour.

Cloud stared long enough that a tinny buzz started blooming in his ears, resonating with the flicker of the dull screens.

He had a job.

He inspired fucking  _loyalty_.

He bared his teeth and snarled when he brought his sword down, metal squealing as it sheared through the consoles. Sparks sprayed in vicious spits.

* * *

Cloud paused. The entrance to the tunnel was too bright to look at directly, pouring daylight through the mouth and painting the walls brilliant white.

He'd pulled a mission with Travers once, down under the plate. It'd been the darkest part of the slums, leaning drunkenly against the graffiti plastered over the base of the central support pillar. Most of the scrawls had been incoherent, but saw-edged rage had been in every sharp stroke of paint, or whatever shit had been used to make the marks.

He'd asked Travers about them, and the Second had just laughed at him.

It wasn't until later, when Travers had been sprawled out on the floor of the gym, spitting sweat from his mouth and nursing the livid bruise over his eye he'd gotten from stepping into Cloud's cross that he'd pressed his lips together for a moment and snorted.

He'd talked about growing up in the slums, then. About how everyone got tired of being angry in the end.

Cloud shuffled around, turning his back to the lighted gap. Ahead, the hall stretched, empty and fading to black. He squeezed his eyes shut in anticipation, reaching for the materia he'd prepared at his wrist.

Travers had shrugged before he'd said, "Can you imagine never seeing the sky?"

The flare was red through his eyelids.

* * *

TBC


	10. Colour in Cadence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Yeah, it's not enough."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and settings are property of Square Enix. No profit is being sought from the writing of this fanfiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
> 
> H'okay. Mass update. Alright. I was feeling so shitty about the unexpected hiatus last time that I just got on with it, but I think I made better time this time, so a few notes to come!
> 
> 1) I can't believe I've hit the one year anniversary of this fic. It was definitely not supposed to go on for this long.
> 
> 2) We're heading into dangerously unbeta'd territory again, unfortunately, so I apologize. Any mistakes are purely my own, and I tend to constantly go back and fix shit that's gone wrong whenever I manage to catch it.
> 
> In more exciting news, the wonderful Filigranka was kind enough to write me some gift drabbles for the 439th anniversary of the signing of the first Warsaw Convention, and she let me kind of go wild with the prompts, and they are gorgeously angsty and AWESOME. They can be found here on AO3, under the titles of Misericorde (Final Fantasy IV) and Tropes disappearing into air (Code Geass), both by Filigranka. (I don't think I can insert links into notes?)

 

**Part 9.** Colour in Cadence

 

Cloud let his mouth fall open as he breathed deeply, and he winced when the movement made his jaw throb. He poked the pads of his fingers into the side of his face gingerly. His skin was filmed over with a thin, unpleasant sticky layer of condensation mixed with sweat, but he could feel the unnatural heat through the damp.

It was going to be one mother of a bruise.

He let his arm drop, his studded bracer clunking against the wooden planks under him.

It was pretty impressive, what the crew had managed to do with the mess that phoenix had made of the mast in the day the Soldiers had been off the airship.

It hadn't felt like a day. More like a whole damn year.

The hard, polished red of the wood stopped about halfway up, replaced by a paler and rougher pole bolted in place with a series of rings of scratched metal that radiated bristles of rods hammered flat into the fresh wood. It made alarming groaning noises in the heavy wind, but it held. Had held, even when the chains pinning down the sails' bars had snapped.

About half of his face decided to remind him of its displeasure at the memory.

The bird had taken a chunk out of the prow, too, and the crew must not have had enough time to fully patch it up. The holes had been mostly covered with a couple of planks of raw wood, and a carefully lashed tarp stretched over the remaining few gaps. It thumped steadily, like a rapid heartbeat, as it shuddered in the wind.

Cloud stretched out a hand, feeling the damp coarseness of one of the new planks scratch against his arm. Unfinished as it was, water had seeped into the fibres by the time they'd finally managed to burst through the thick layer of thunderheads up into a blaze of sunlight. It felt weird, the bake of heat from the sun above almost as uncomfortable as the chill of wet wood leeching body heat away. Like he was nothing but some kind of a conductor, passing the energy through him into its intended destination, like when—

_Want me to take care of it?_

It was fucking creepy.

Cloud squeezed his eyes shut. Not that it helped, the way the light pierced through his eyelids and made it look like the world had caught on fire, but he didn't think he could ever get up again. Even his clothes felt like they'd been poured on and then left to harden like clay, gluing him to the boards under him.

"What are you doing, kid?"

It was the ship's captain, a veteran military pilot who'd been with ShinRa before the Soldier program had even been considered. He recognized the voice because it had been shouting in his ear plenty a couple of hours ago.

"Getting a tan," Cloud said.

The captain laughed, short and hard. "I guess you Soldiers don't have to worry so much about blistering and burning. Me, I stick to the shade." By the sound of it, he was sitting down.

Cloud managed to crack an eye open. Under the wind-scored shell, the old man did look painfully pale. A northerner, like him, then.

The captain was still talking. "—not gonna lie, we wouldn't have made it otherwise. I'm glad to have you aboard."

Cloud shrugged, his armour scraping quietly over the deck. "We didn't particularly want to die in the storm, either. And it was probably my fault. With my luck, the day I get on an airship and there's no giant flaming bird trying to eat us, or no massive thunderstorm, or anything like that, I'm going to throw myself a huge party."

"I'd appreciate it if you stayed off my ship in the meantime," the old man said drily.

"Like there's some other ship willing to take us on a mission we weren't supposed to survive," Cloud said, turning his head. "Besides—" he caught sight of the florets on the man's shoulder, and he snapped his mouth shut. Shit. He struggled to pull himself to his feet. "I mean, er, Major..."

"Adler," the Major said, waving Cloud away. "Adrian Adler. At ease, Soldier Second Class Strife. You're special ops, anyway."

"Oh." Right. Cloud sat back slowly. The Soldier program had command over wartime operations. It was part of the reason why the Security department had been so pissy lately, after years of ruling Midgar. But still. Cloud glanced at Adler. "Did Director Lazard ask you to...?"

Adler scowled. "I offered." He shook his head jerkily. "Like you said, no one else wanted to take you."

"Oh."

The sails made a clanking sound, and Cloud turned to look up at the warped links of the chain trailing from one of the beams.

He'd been below decks at the time, so he hadn't seen the storm come up, but from what one of the other guys had been saying, it'd come in out of nowhere. A crew member had told him that it wasn't uncommon because of the way the ocean hit the mountains so abruptly. The Wutai called it a "divine wind," and it was one of the major reasons why the war had dragged on for so long. By the time he'd gotten up top, Cloud had slammed his head into a wall a couple of times as the ship bucked, Adler had been fighting the wheel futilely, and the chains on the main mast had been giving.

He'd managed to snag the first one somehow just as it snapped, and he'd held on relentlessly as the links slowly lost their rubber coating to start cutting into his palms. His heels had felt like they'd dug grooves into the boards while he'd screamed for the other Soldiers to get their asses over there. They'd held down the lines, the thickest chain wrapped around McPhee's waist since he'd been the biggest and Cloud had shoved him into the anchor position, until the ship's crew could knot them to other makeshift anchors with heavy ropes. It had looked like an enormous crazed spider had taken to the masts and started spinning fourteen different webs by the time they'd pinned the sails down, but it'd held somehow.

That had been about when the ship had been smashed with a spiralling gale, the wheel had spun out, and they'd started to tip and plummet.

The lurch had nearly sent him over the side, and as he clung to the rail, dry heaving because he had nothing left to regurgitate, he saw Adler sliding over the rain-slicked deck. He didn't remember the rest very clearly, just the Major's fingers clamped over an arm as Cloud snatched at the whipping wheel. The first try, one of the spokes had clocked him viciously in the jaw. He could almost feel the bruise darkening with every passing second. The second had nearly taken off a hand. Third time, he'd jammed a shoulder into a gap and  _shoved_ , feeling like he'd been dive-bombed by a behemoth, holding the thing still until he could grab it and lean his full weight into turning it while the Major had shouted things like "No, the  _other_  way, dipshit!" into his ear.

He hadn't known how Adler could tell which way was up as the man belted a flurry of instructions by his head, but then they were clear of the suffocating clouds, black sooty haze falling away below them, and a fucking  _roar_ came from the men tangled desperately into anything they could grab.

Cloud had waited until the chaos had subsided before he'd limped off, hoping that he'd just die and put himself out of his misery.

The Major had been shuffling around out of his line of sight. "Here," he said presently.

Cloud eyed the flask hovering by his elbow.

Adler grinned. "Go on, try it. My own recipe."

That didn't make it sound any better, but Cloud took the little container anyway. The fumes smelled like they could strip tar.

"It's a North Corel specialty. Made from peaches," the Major said encouragingly.

"Might have started out as peaches..." Cloud mumbled, bringing the flask up and taking a sip.

Oh god fucking damn  _hell_ —

It felt like he'd tried to snort the whole thing up his nose. As he coughed, his eyes watering furiously, he thought he could hear the old man laughing.

"Puts hair on your chest, don't it?" Adler chortled, catching the flask Cloud tossed back to him. Then the sadistic old fart lifted up the bottle to take a drag, caught sight of Cloud's face, and promptly choked.

"Sorry," Cloud said unrepentantly.

Adler just shook his head, chuckling as he pressed the smooth metal back into Cloud's hand.

There'd been other people passing by on the deck over the past hour or so, crew mostly, trotting around as they kept the ship sailing smoothly over the clouds and making sure to steer well clear of Cloud and his sour scowl as he tried to meld into the ship's boards. He hadn't been listening for the approach before—

"Sir?"

Cloud twisted to look over his shoulder, where a Third stood, outlined in a shock of sunlight. He slapped his free hand over his eyes reflexively, and he tried to place the voice.

"Timms?"

The Third snickered, dropping down into his haunches beside Cloud. "Oh. Sorry."

"You doing okay?" The light washed out the Soldier's dark hair, but he looked strangely cheerful for someone who'd gotten a hole punched through his chest. Except for the lingering tightness around his mouth that gave his skin premature creases. "That was a lot of magic all at once."

"I'll be fine." Timms hesitated for a moment. "Uh. Thank you."

Cloud waved a hand vaguely.

"I mean, the ship physic did call me a bunch of things I'd never even heard of before, and I'd thought I'd heard  _plenty_ , and then he told me I was damn lucky you overloaded that materia without blowing us both up, and that if I got out of bed before we landed, he'd skin me, but... you know. I got bored." Timms glanced over his shoulder quickly. "Please don't tell him."

Cloud opened his mouth, thought about it, and shut it again. Adler was laughing again.

"Oh yeah. Here, sir."

It took Cloud a few seconds to figure out what Timms was holding. The Wutai log they found in the base looked a lot more ratty out in full light.

"I ran it by the comms officer, and yeah, he could read it. He said it's just a journal."

Cloud dropped the pages into his lap, letting the wind flip through them.

"The grunts weren't allowed deep enough into the compound to see what was going on, but they knew that sometimes people would disappear into the deeper parts and never come back." Timms made a face when Cloud looked up. "They were even using their own people, seems like. Anyway, this guy was there until nearly the end. He wrote that he was scared. Wanted to go home."

A loose sheet suddenly whipped out from within the bound journal, and Cloud slapped it flat onto the deck before it got out of reach. When he peeled it up, the ink was damp, but legible enough. Still the mysterious squiggles, though.

"Sounds like kind of a wuss, if you ask me," Timms said. Then he shifted awkwardly, bringing a hand up to his nape.

Cloud ignored him, eyeing the sheet that had been tucked in between the pages. "This doesn't look like a journal entry," he said. "Kind of looks like a letter?"

Adler took it out of his hand. At Cloud's look, he shrugged. "I'm a bit rusty, but I learned enough to get by." He scanned the sheet. "It's to his daughter and wife. Standard pleasantries, asking after the village... They probably hadn't seen each other for a while. He's using pretty stiff language. Must not be very close. Huh."

"What?"

"This section's addressed to his kid." Adler paused, narrowing his eyes as his lips moved soundlessly through some foreign syllables. "I'm not really sure what it says," he said after a moment. "Something about a sweet smell of spring. Trapped in a long dream..."

Ice water sluiced through Cloud's veins. Dimly, distantly, he heard his breath speed up.

"Oh, I know what this is." Adler looked up, and he stopped. "You alright, Soldier? You're looking kind of grey."

He could hear them again. He could—

He—

No. They weren't real. They were the buzzing filling his ears, the clenching in his stomach, the spit choking his mouth. A whacked out dream telling him to wake up. It wasn't real. Not like this. Real like Timms's worried eyes as he leaned forward, making the wind snap at his uniform and casting a thick shadow over his arm. Real like the stench of tobacco wreathing the old man and his yellowed fingers.  _Real_.

Cloud was sure now.

He curled in, bringing his knees up to his chest and trying to smile. "Ah. Yeah. Recent wound." It was true, anyway. His new scar felt like someone had pressed a brand into his flesh until it had started to really sizzle. He shook his head. "It'll pass. What's the letter say?"

Adler scowled at him for a while longer, but when Cloud didn't show any signs of keeling over, he continued. "It's an old Wutai myth I heard a long time ago, about Leviathan freezing an entire village when they couldn't survive a harsh winter until spring came and they thawed out. It's basically a promise that things will get better."

Cloud took the letter slowly. It was kind of funny. Whenever he tried to imagine some scared Wutai soldier writing the elaborate lines of the characters, all he could remember was the scent of fragrant wood, slivers of shavings popping as they burned, and the glint of a tiny knife in Hoffe's broad hand. He let his eyes fall shut. He didn't even know how old Hoffe's daughter was, or what she looked like, he realized.

"Was he going to send this home?"

"Probably. The address is up in this corner." Adler pointed at the page. "Never heard of the place. It must not have had any sort of tactical significance in the siege."

Cloud exhaled loudly, and he tucked the page back into the journal before snapping it shut. "Well, nothing we didn't already know." He tilted his head. "You want this, Timms? You found it."

Timms bit his lip, eyes on the dust-encrusted sheets. Then he started to stand. "No. I'll just toss it. Don't want it to look like I'm some kind of a Wutai sympathizer."

Remembering Heidegger's glittering stare, sharp like concealed glass under all that blustering horse-laughter, Cloud nodded. "Good point." He flattened his hand over the crackling paper. "You know what, I'll do it for you. I'm a bit less likely to get grilled, after everything that happened during the war."

"Uh. Yeah." When Timms smiled this time, it was the brilliant grin of someone who still bought into all the bullshit ShinRa had fed them about heroes. "Thanks."

Despite the blazing sun, the air was dry and cold this high up. Cloud blinked down at the gleaming flask still nestled in his palm. The metal was faintly warm under his skin. He brought it up to his mouth.

The liquid burned like a bitch going down, but the heat died quickly, leaving a sharper chill in its wake.

* * *

Shit.

Cloud turned around the way he'd came into the officers' cabin—Angeal would grin himself sick at the sight of him perched awkwardly in one corner of the massive room—but Robertsson smoothly planted himself in the door.

Cloud stopped. He wondered what it would to do his credibility if he forced his way out.

Yeah. No.

"You want something, Robertsson?"

The stiff douche hadn't been intimidating for a long time. He generally slouched so much that Cloud had forgotten the couple of inches the other Second had on him in height.

The officers' cabin was nestled off from the rest of the ship, where footsteps rarely thumped about overhead. The rest of the crew's quarters were clustered around the engine hub, and the passengers got packed into two flanks, where they'd get more sunlight. And the brunt of any attacks directed at the ship, but Cloud had just snorted to himself at the thought and kept quiet. This airship had spent a good chunk of its career ferrying soldiers, anyway. The brass tended to take the floating metal fortresses.

"How long has it been going on?"

Cloud felt himself tense. Shit.

After everything that happened—nearly dying, and then nearly dying again; oh, plus a side of everyone else nearly dying—Cloud had forgotten that Robertsson had been giving him the stink eye ever since that meltdown with the Wutai gunners. It wasn't as if he could have come up with a good story given notice. He'd just figured he'd lay low until the guy gave up. It had sounded like a good idea at the time. And as it happened distressingly often enough when he panicked, he opened his mouth and let the stupidity out. "Uh," he said, "you're not accusing me of cheating on you, are you? Because I didn't know that we had—"

"Cute, Strife. You know what I meant. The hallucinations. How long have they been going on?"

 _Shit_.

Cloud stared up at Robertsson's scowl. Outside, there was a grind of the rudder, and a sudden sense of weight as the ship dipped. And instead of preparing to land like he was supposed to, he was here eyeballing Robertsson like a damn rookie. He probably couldn't lie his way out of this one, even if by some off chance he'd suddenly gained the ability to lie convincingly and not look, as that martial arts instructor back in Nibelheim who'd had it in for him had once called it, like he was expecting his pants to burst into fire at any minute. After what Robertsson saw, he couldn't just claim it was a headache or something equally transparent.

Fucking loyalty and fucking people who keep paying fucking  _attention_  to him.

Cloud let his breath slide out, and tension seemed to drip out from his fingertips. He was exhausted. And he owed Robertsson.

"Wutai," he said.

"Wutai?"

"Since I got shipped out to the war."

Robertsson was quiet for a while. His expression didn't change, but Cloud was reasonably certain that the man was surprised to get a response.

"Well," Robertsson said finally, "that was when some of your buddies started commenting that you were acting less Prozac and more like your puppy had died."

Cloud thought he probably should be offended by both those statements. " _Prozac_?"

"You used to be fucking bouncy, Strife."

"That doesn't mean I'm automatically— And that's not even the  _right_  drug— You know what, forget it." Robertsson started to say something, and Cloud raised his voice. "I know. I got it. I was a dumbass. Kunsel said the same thing, remember? I was fixating so much on what I did wrong, who I'd lost, that I'd forgotten what was more important." Cloud spread a hand and waved. "These people. The people who are still alive, who are relying on me to get my shit together. I've got to stop focussing in the past and do whatever I can for these guys. Because we're the ones who are still alive."

Now Robertsson really looked surprised. "That's..."

"Trite as fuck? Yeah. You know it's true, though."

Robertsson pressed his mouth into a thin line. "I was gonna say not the point—"

"What the hell, Robertsson? How is it besides the point?" Suddenly the cabin was too small. Cloud crossed the room in a couple of steps and pulled one of the stiff-backed chairs from the desk. Swinging a leg over the backrest and making sure he didn't wince at the pull on his side, he sat, draping his arms over the smooth wooden slats. "Look, I'm better now. I haven't seen anything since I've stopped stressing about what's already happened."

"You looked like you were having a seizure," Robertsson said flatly. "I had to nearly break your jaw to snap you out of it."

"That was yesterday!"

"Are you  _listening_  to yourself talk?" Robertsson snapped, his scowl pulling deep. "What are you so scared of, anyway?"

Cloud stopped breathing.

The soundproofing was pretty damn impressive for such an old ship. With the door shut and clear skies stretching outside the porthole window, he could almost pretend they were hovering motionless. Only the gentle tremors of the engine humming through the floorboards gave away their flight.

Into the silence, his first ragged exhale was loud.

"I don't know," he said softly.

Robertsson shut his eyes, visibly calming himself. "Strife," he said finally, "I haven't ratted you out, and I don't intend to. It's not my right to undermine your authority." He smiled faintly. "You're a good commander." The smile turned into a smirk when Cloud snorted loudly at that. "You'll get better, and I'll be behind you. But when we get back to Midgar, you should go talk to the med centre. Get some help. Because if you won't," the smile fell away, "I will."

Cloud laughed, a short, helpless sound.

"You can request specific doctors, you know. There's a Soldier specialist. She transferred over from the Science department when Hollander stepped down as head." Robertsson crossed his arms, a faint grimace on his face. "I wouldn't know, but some of my old unit said she's not as batty as most."

Cloud flattened his face into his arms, trying to still the jerking in his shoulders. "And when," he said, half a gasp through the giggles, "did you become such an expert on bedside manner?"

If Robertsson was going to say something, he didn't make it out. At Cloud's hip, his PHS began buzzing and rattling against the edge of his seat, seconds before it started ringing shrilly. He'd seen some of the other Soldiers pull out their systems as soon as they'd crossed out of the radio silence zone around Wutai, and once they hadn't been in danger of getting fried by lightning. Probably to reassure someone back home that they were making their way back somehow. Technically, they shouldn't have been using them for personal communications before they'd officially been dismissed, but... Cloud hadn't contacted anyone.

And he hadn't been expecting a call.

Cloud dug it out quickly, glancing down at the screen. He didn't recognize the number. Weird.

He took a long breath, trying to ignore the black look on Robertsson's face and swallow at least some of the hysteria before he flipped the lid up.

"Strife here."

"Strife, is your unit combat ready? I want you to head into sector eight as soon as you land."

Cloud froze, abruptly sombre. That had sounded like— He pulled the earpiece from his head and frowned briefly at the screen, flashing its unknown PHS number. "Sephiroth?" he said slowly.

"Yes?" came the voice from the tinny connection, crackling with distance. He thought he could hear steps coming from the other end.

Cloud looked up. Robertsson was eyeing his PHS, too, an odd look on his face.

"What is it?" the speaker said again, impatience sharpening the voice.

"Uh, nothing!" Cloud brought the device up to his ear hurriedly. "I apologize for my distraction, sir." He frowned. "Sector eight? Are we under attack?"

"Yes. Genesis copies. Search and destroy."

"Yes sir." Cloud hesitated for a moment. "I wouldn't say the men are combat ready, sir. There are wounded, and I pushed them hard through the night."

There was a pause, shot through with thin static. Over the line, there was a faint, familiar sound, like the whine of air against an edge, moments before the far louder crunch of something metallic being crushed. Whatever it had been was apparently suitably disabled, because the hollow tap of bootsteps started up again. "It should be sufficient if you go alone. Send the others back to base. According to the communication towers, you're less than an hour away from the city limits."

"Yes sir, the captain had us preparing for landing."

"Tell him to step on it."

"Yes sir," Cloud said, already moving for the cabin door.

This time, Robertsson let him pass.

* * *

The first time Cloud had seen the ShinRa main lobby, he'd been herded in through the front doors with the rest of the batch of recruits, and it had been overwhelming. He'd stared, as blatantly as he'd dared, at the stony faced guards manning the security booths, the waxy expanse of the floor, almost blinding under the faux natural lighting, and at all the  _people_ , all moving with sharp purpose in their steps. This time, by the time they'd slammed through the last door leading to the lobby—he'd taken the Soldiers in through a side entrance, down a maintenance corridor silent and dark except for the steady orange pulse of an emergency light—he stepped out into chaos.

This floor was usually occupied by civilian employees, people who spent most of their time answering calls and pushing paper. The Security department handled their protection.

A hoarse scream cut through the noise as a man in a business suit slipped in a patch of blood slowly draining into the thin gaps between the marble tiles and went down heavily. He twisted to look over his shoulder, and he screamed again, bringing his arms up in an attempt to shield himself from the sickle blade descending towards his head. When the strike never landed, it didn't register, and he was still screaming by the time Cloud had twisted his sword enough to slap the blade locked over the edge to the ground before sweeping up in a blow that ripped open the Genesis copy's ribcage.

"Oi!" He reached out and thumped a glove into the man's arm. "Get up!"

He saw a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye and managed to catch another clone's attack. Metal clanged as he blocked awkwardly, and he let his broadsword flip with the force of the hit in his hands until the hilt swung around to face the clone. With a shout, Cloud thrust the pommel forward into the exposed throat, and he felt the windpipe crunch damply.

He glanced over his shoulder at the man sprawled on the ground, eyes wide and mouth frozen open as he stared up at Cloud. At the haze of green settling over his skin, Cloud knew his own eyes were probably flaring with mako.

"Move it, man!" he shouted, and the guy flinched. "Run! Go!"

As the civilian scrambled to his feet, Cloud spun into a lunge, his sword sliding into a clone's chest up to its hilt. Off to the side, he saw Timms take off a Genesis copy's helmet with a vicious uppercut before slamming both fists into the sides of the exposed temples to drop the clone.

Something clanked at his feet, the sound nearly buried by the barrage of gunfire. Cloud drew back a boot to kick it to aside, and he stiffened. Instead of the red of the clone's helmet he'd been expecting, three recessed bulbs gleamed up at him from a Security helmet like the battered headlights of a train. One was crushed inwards, at the centre of a heavy dent. Cloud glanced up over at the door, where the security sensors flanking the broken glass panes were screeching as they went berserk. Over the edge of one of the guard booths, a figure hung limply, an arm stretching down parallel to the ribbons of red painted down the chrome facing.

Cloud grimaced, turning away from the body. He slung a hand out, magic crackling on his fingertips in response to the roaring discharge of the Thundaga spell streaking through the air. The clone he hit contorted, arms bending erratically together behind his back before collapsing. A spark of electricity arced for a moment, a second before Cloud swung around to slap a thrusting blade downward just as he reached out with his other hand to clamp his fingers around the second clone's head and  _pushed_  the magic into it. Electricity sizzled, the stink of charred hair diffusing out from under the helmet.

Letting the clone sag to the ground, Cloud looked around.

There weren't that many of them left. A couple of Thirds were engaging one of the red figures that spent most of its time hastily dodging the coordinated strikes, and closer to one of the flight of stairs, he could see Robertsson straighten up, stepping away from a crumpled body, and pivot around to collect his bearings.

Cloud heard a quiet whimper, and he turned.

It was that lady that kept offering him potion samples whenever he passed through the hall. She huddled tightly against the corner where wall met floor, the sheen of tears on her cheeks. Cloud hurried over and knelt to check her over. She looked fine. More or less. Probably in shock, though.

She barely looked at him, wordlessly allowing him to draw her up to her feet.

Turning, Cloud snagged Forenz's arm where he was passing by.

"Sir?"

He pressed the woman into the Third's arms. "Get her out of here."

"Got it."

Robertsson had picked his way over the slick stone of the floors by the time Cloud glanced up again. The man slowed as he neared, taking a deep breath and nodding.

"Robertsson, I'm heading out to sector eight."

The Second's eyes flicked to him from scanning the hall, and he nodded again.

" You guys take care of clean up. Secure the entrance, alright?" Cloud said, scraping his sword clean, or at least trying to, against the wall. "Keep an eye on each other, keep an eye on the civilians, and don't try anything fancy."

"Yeah."

Cloud hesitated for a moment. The guy had been acting normal enough since Cloud had walked out on him on the ship. "I'm counting on you, Robertsson."

There was a quick grin and a grunt of acknowledgement, and Robertsson was darting past him. The Second reached out and yanked a Genesis copy away from a kid intern he'd been bearing down upon before driving a hand dagger up from under the clone's ribs.

Cloud vaulted over the falling body of the clone on his way to the smashed doors.

* * *

The sun had set sometime between landing and getting clear of the ShinRa building. It was always kind of dark in Midgar, anyway, with permanent smog colouring the sky.

Cloud flung himself flat against the rust-coloured bricks of the wall at his back as a truck whipped by, its brakes squealing, back tires fishtailing wildly, and a masked Genesis clone clawing for balance where he hunched over his weapon jabbed into the roof. With a shriek of metal, the vehicle wrapped itself around a streetlight and slammed to a halt. The jarring stop sent the clone flying into the darkness. The pole tilted slowly at first, building speed as it leaned over further and gravity clutched at it harder, until with a groan-twang of snapped wires, it toppled and showered sparks and glass pellets to the sidewalk.

There was a short scream, and a woman in a suit skirt darted away out of an alley with her hands clapped over her head and neck. Whoever had been driving the truck remained folded and unmoving against the steering wheel.

Above the patch of blackness in which the shattered streetlight used to stand, the massive "Loveless" sign hummed and spat in multicolour.

Cloud jogged over to where the clone lay in a heap against some crumbled bricks he'd probably knocked free of a wall. He glanced down at his sword, made a face at the dust that had settled into the streaks of whatever bodily fluids he hadn't been able to clean off, and used the tip to lever off the clone's helmet. From the bizarre way the head lolled back, his neck was broken.

The truck driver wasn't much better off, given the blood-smeared network of cracks in the windshield.

Letting out a frustrated growl, Cloud scanned the littered streets of the Loveless district. "What the fuck is going  _on_  here?" Reaching the truck, Cloud ducked down to peer into the driver's side window. The crushed frame of the body was mostly concentrated on the empty passenger side, but the man at the wheel was slumped unmoving over it, a black mess of mangled skin and blood dripping down a side of his forehead and blending with his short, dark hair.

"Hey, can you hear me?"

He hadn't really been expecting a response.

He hadn't been expecting the reedy pulse he felt at the man's throat either.

"Oh!" Cloud stepped back to yank at the door handle. "Hold on." It didn't budge. "Dammit." He reached in through the window and felt around the inside of the door, but it didn't even click when he finally found and fiddled with the locking mechanism. Jammed. Scowling at the bent metal, he dropped deeper into his stance to brace his boots against the asphalt, took a deep breath, and  _yanked_. The door shuddered, flakes of paint fountaining, and then with a deafening crack, the locked frame ripped free of the rest of the body, swinging out so that Cloud had to scramble backwards to avoid getting slapped with twisted metal. The door leaned drunkenly on a hinge that Cloud had managed not to tear out with the other one.

He ducked down again. The driver was wedged pretty tightly. Slitting his eyes and turning his torso so that it was mostly his shoulder guard facing the cracked glass, he slammed upwards and out with a gloved fist. The windshield exploded outward, the clatter of falling glass battering the ridged metal of the crushed hood making him hunch down between his shoulders. When it stopped, Cloud stood slowly, shards of glass rolling and clicking down his back as they were dislodged.

Wrapping his fingers around the mostly empty frame of the windshield, Cloud started to pull.

It squealed like a pig being bled out, or a hundred nails dragging over yards of chalkboard. Gritting his teeth hard, Cloud stamped down the urge that screamed at him to let go and clap his hands over his ears, and he leaned his full weight into dragging at the metal. His arms felt like jelly, trembling as he strained, the worn leather against his palm bunching and piling against the bars as his hands started to slip. He tightened his grip as much as he could. The inside of his gloves felt clammy and slick. Slowly, screeching the whole way, the metal gave, curling up and bending in on itself as the windshield frame peeled up from the rest of the body.

As soon as the pressure had decreased enough, the driver slumped to the side and started to slide out of the truck, and Cloud swore under his breath as he hastily abandoned the pried up windshield frame, caught the limp man, and laid him as delicately as he could on the ground.

Sitting back onto his haunches and looking down at the slack face, Cloud chewed on a lip. Fuck, what now?

The man was breathing shallowly and unevenly, and Cloud hesitated for a moment before fingering his Cure. Soft green light settled over the driver's skin, glinting sharply for a moment off the ring on his left hand and making Cloud blink at the glare. Even unconscious, the man winced and his shoulders dug into the pavement for a second, but then his breathing smoothed.

"Uh, sorry," Cloud said, on the off chance that the man could hear him. "I can't chance any more magic if you've got some kind of a head wound. Your brain could scar, and yeah, it's not pretty."

No response.

"Yeah," Cloud muttered, looking up and around.

A flash of white.

"Hey!" he shouted, and the figure paused, glanced around, and began to lope over to him. As the features resolved themselves, Cloud felt his mouth tighten. It had been the white of an unbuttoned collar he saw. The red hair wasn't just reflecting fluorescent glow from the signs overhead, but actually blindingly bright. A weeping wound against the rumpled black-blue suit.

Turk.

Cloud forced his face blank, and he used his best impression of the razor-edge voice he'd heard in Angeal's orders when he expected them to be followed. "Any emergency responders in the sector?"

The guy actually laughed, the weird blue markings under his eyes creasing. "Hell no," he said loudly. "ShinRa's got no time for that, yo. HQ's under attack!"

Cloud felt his mouth twist. "Then  _call_  some! Or watch over this guy while I get a civilian doctor!"

The Turk's eyes widened. "Who,  _me_?"

Cloud stared, unmoving as the Turk splayed out his hands.

"That ain't my job, yo!"

He pressed his teeth together. He was going to  _strangle_  that man and his fucking obnoxious verbal tic if he didn't—

"Be quiet, Reno."

Cloud let out the breath he hadn't known he'd been holding, and he forced his hands to unclench.

Tseng dipped his head, his tuft of hair bobbing slightly and pristine as always in its tie despite the thin beaded lines of sweat at his temple. "Strife."

Cloud moved to wipe at his own face where bits of gravel were trying to permanently burrow under his skin, but he dropped his hands again when he saw the grimy crust on his gloves. He hauled himself to his feet. "Tseng," he greeted.

The wall of a man standing behind Tseng, his bald head gleaming red in the neon lighting over the thick black lenses of his glasses, didn't say anything. But that didn't stop Reno from leaning in and grinning.

"Heeey! You're Cloud, yo! Super Soldier boy that hauled Tseng from a burning wreck of chopper!"

Cloud shifted his gaze from Reno's bared teeth to Tseng's blank face and then back again. "That's not what happened." It might have been a hint of exasperation he saw there.

"Put it there, yo!" the Turk said, lifting a hand as if Cloud hadn't said anything. "Name's Reno. That there's Rude, my partner, and you already know Tseng, yeah?"

It was almost reflex, the way Cloud reached up and gripped the man's hand lamely. "Uh. Great, but there's this guy—" his shot up to Reno's shoulder when his eyes widened. "—shit, watch it!"

The Genesis copy balanced for a moment on the roof of the building across the street, hands curled around the edge of the ledge, before he flung himself forward in some kind of a suicidal dive at them. The red armour caught the light, pauldrons shining with an organic glisten, a second before Cloud shoved the loud Turk down while he threw himself out of the way of the charge. He couldn't see anything but a blood-coloured blur mixed with flashes of the grain of the pavement as he hit the ground with a shoulder and rolled, an elbow knocking painfully against a curb as he went, but the clone seemed to catch himself in midair and somehow  _swooped_.

Cloud managed to pull his head up at the rush of air tugging at the hair over his crown following the clone's passage, and he saw the figure contort, arms and legs shooting out to slow his fall as he rushed past his target.

Straight towards a woman frozen in the middle of the street.

Inhaling sharply, Cloud bunched his legs under him, preparing to launch himself into a sprint—

And he watched the woman spring up into the air, using the force of her spiralling jump to drive a massive shuriken straight through her attacker's throat with the thick, slick sound of a butcher's knife parting flesh and bone. The Genesis copy dropped like a marionette from snapped strings, thudding limply to the ground. His helmet flew off at the impact, spinning a mad top's dance over the sidewalk.

The woman had to plant a carefully polished shoe into the clone's chestplate to yank her weapon free. Then she turned towards them, a small smile touching her mouth as she walked away from the body.

Of course.

Cloud watched the woman approach dully. He'd probably used up his capacity for surprise at this point. He eyed her red hair, not quite Reno's virulent crimson, and he remembered. "You're the one who gave me that umbrella back then."

She kept up the polite little smile.

"You're a Turk, too, huh?"

The smile widened. "Cissnei," she said. An introduction.

He nodded. "Cloud."

But she just shrugged, that composed slash of a smile not slipping for a moment. "I know who you are, Soldier boy. But thanks."

Cloud cut back the first thing that wanted to come out of his mouth, and he tilted his head back to let out a long breath. The sky was murky overhead, a grey haze concentrated around a skyscraper that probably covered the spot the moon would be. "I don't know why you all keep calling me that," he said eventually, "but look. We seem to have the same objective here. We should work together. Clear the—"

"Thanks for the offer, Soldier," Reno interrupted, "but you forget." He tilted his head to meet Cloud's eyes, half a feral grin tugging at his lips as he tapped a black, gleaming rod against his shoulder. "Sector eight is Turk's turf." The stick spat a blue spark that arced menacingly for a moment over the thick tip.

Electromag, Cloud realized. Trust the Turks to get the expensive shit.

Cloud drew closer to the man as he slitted his eyes. "Well maybe," he said slowly, the words whistling a bit through his clenched jaw, "you're not doing so good of a job if you're letting people get hurt like this." He gestured, a quick, sharp jerk, toward the man lying motionless on the pavement by his wrecked truck.

Reno glared back, his mouth thin and tight.

In the distance, a siren was blaring.

"Hey," Cissnei said suddenly, appearing at their shoulders, "testosterone boys."

Reno turned his head to scowl at her, but she continued.

"A Genesis copy just went into that theatre while you were busy making eyes at each other," she said flatly.

"What?" Reno said, spinning abruptly toward the building.

"Another one just headed over the roofs toward the commercial district, so I'm going after it." Cissnei fixed them each with a hard look. "Now, if you're done with your little spat, I suggest you posture later, Reno, when Midgar  _isn't_  crawling with monsters." She snapped her wrist as she turned, the shuriken glittering along its blades before she tucked it away.

"Hey, wait!"

She was gone, ignoring Cloud's voice.

To his other side, Reno cussed, darting toward the theatre doors and disappearing into the shadows.

Cloud glanced at Tseng, and when he raised his hands, it probably looked a bit lost. "Don't Turks usually work in pairs?" he said.

Tseng shut his eyes for a moment, and there was a ghost of a sigh. "Cissnei's partner is... away."

"Mission?" A memory sparked, and Cloud narrowed his eyes. "Does it have anything to do with this big eco-terrorist group I keep hearing about?"

Absolutely nothing changed in Tseng's expression. "You know I can't share classified information, Strife."

It was about as good of an admission as he was about to get, anyway.

Cloud gnawed on the inside of his cheek, glancing first at the theatre's neon-glow Loveless sign before peering after where Cissnei had vanished around the corner.

Tseng tucked a hand into an inner pocket as he stepped closer, hesitated, and said, "I would prefer not to ask you, Strife, but compared to Cissnei, Reno is more likely to require assistance."

Cloud looked back at the theatre. "Oh," he said. He started toward it, but then stopped and turned. "Wait, about the civilian—"

Tseng was already bringing the PHS he'd pulled from his pocket up to his ear. He waved a couple of fingers at Cloud without looking around. "I've got it covered."

* * *

There was a clear colour scheme to the theatre. Red featured prominently. The seats were upholstered with some sort of smooth looking fabric Cloud didn't know the name of, and soft golden lights lined the walkways, not so much shining as diffusing in the dark. Folds of heavy red velvet dripped down the walls, sucking away whatever sounds that hadn't already been engulfed by the thick carpeting. Probably decorative. Clearly useless.

Opulence like that always made Cloud's shoulders hunch, the way it made it clear that he didn't belong.

It also looked empty.

Cloud twisted to look over his shoulder where Rude had followed him into the theatre silently. "You going after your partner?" he said, something about the deserted theatre keeping his voice low. Behind the shades, he couldn't see where the Turk was looking.

A moment later, the man made a complicated shrug.

"Right..." This was stupid, ducking every time he made a sound. Cloud cleared his throat. "He probably went after the Genesis copy. Would you check around, see if there's anyone that needs help, and get them somewhere safe while I go back up Reno?"

This time, the nod was almost instantaneous, and the tall Turk turned away. His footsteps were soundless against the thick fuzz covering the floor.

Cloud carefully did not breathe a quiet huff of relief when he was gone.

Running a couple of finger tips over the rows of polished wood edging the seats, he picked his way down the aisle toward the bare stage. It hadn't really sunk in yet. That he was back home, where the happiest people in the world lived—because if they weren't happy, why would everyone try to make it to Midgar, so they had to be—and paid shit tons of money to come sit in these fancy chairs and watch fancy actors spout poetry while wearing fancy clothes. He'd left that empty deathtrap in Wutai, left the voices that churned his thoughts to blood pudding and  _shouts_  behind, jumped off an airship blinking the grainy feeling of being awake for too long out of his eyes, and plunged right into another battle and into this empty theatre.

It was different, though. Even aside from the obvious lack of disrepair. As Cloud shuffled his way through this building, it felt alive. Like something was watching him.

"Hey, Reno?" he bellowed. "You here?" The sound crashed through the stillness and died quickly.

He didn't hear anything, not even the whisper of shifting air in this giant mute box, but  _something_  clawed up his arms and caused the hairs to stand up on his neck and just made him instinctively  _turn_.

He didn't have enough time to yank his sword free from its sheath, so he brought up his arms instead, just barely catching the slash on the edge of his bracer in a clang that felt like it had jarred his teeth loose. Brilliant specks of light flashed in front of his eyes, either sparks sprayed up from the impact or his vision playing tricks on him as the shockwave of the blow travelled up his arms. A guttural sound forced its way past his mouth, and he pulled his other hand up wildly when he saw the clone raise his second curved dagger.

He punched out with the back of his fist, managing to catch the hilt and knock the weapon to the ground. It landed with a dull clunk that was barely audible over the sound of his own breath gushing out of his lungs when the clone brought up an armoured knee and drove it into his gut with more force than he'd thought could possibly exist.

Cloud opened his mouth, nothing but a croaking sound coming out as his legs buckled. It felt like his stomach had been caved in with a steel beam.

Ifrit's balls, he couldn't breathe.

In the haze of dancing black spots, he forced his free arm up to reach for his sword.

"Strife!" Reno's voice came from somewhere behind him. "He's coming your way! Don't let him get away!"

Cloud overbalanced when the clone pulled away, and he sagged, his mouth open and gulping ineffectively at the air. The Genesis copy's head whipped around, the helmet red as the walls, and then he was on the stage in a whirl of pounding footsteps that faded into the gloom.

Cloud swallowed a low moan, prying himself off the floor. His muscles felt like they were trying to peel themselves off his bones and his ears rang like he'd stuffed some of the tiny jangly bells in each of them. At least he could breathe without gagging now. "You know," he groused, pressing a hand against the thumping in the back of his head, "advance warning only works if it comes in advance." In the corner of his eye, he could see Reno slow down and crane his neck to look around.

"The hell, man, you lost him?"

Reno hopped a couple of rows of seats, peering into the dim wings stretching beyond the stage.

"Go fuck yourself, Reno," Cloud said through gritted teeth, using an armrest to lever himself to his feet.

"I'll take the left, yo," Reno called over his shoulder as he padded into the gloom.

It wasn't until the rich wood creaked ominously under his hand that Cloud quickly released his grip. Straightening his spine as much as he could and wincing when the discs popped loudly, Cloud flattened a palm against the smooth edge of the stage and propelled himself up, landing on his feet and taking off to the right. Even Robertsson would have been preferable, back when he'd first met the jackass.

* * *

There were  _things_  behind the stage. Mostly relics of old productions, like bits of scenery on stiff boards, piles of props... They looked oddly eerie, lying abandoned in dark corners like forgotten dead. The worst part was how much cover all the junk afforded, and it didn't help the tension in Cloud's shoulders, creeping through the grainy green-edged shadows and expecting something to jump out from behind everything.

He strained to hear anything that could be moving.

He'd almost made a full circuit of the wing before he heard it. A rustle.

Cloud's head snapped up and to the side.

He saw it a second later, the splash of red, the sheen of leather.

Tearing his sword free in a practiced movement, he crossed the distance in one long bound, planted his boots, and yanked the red figure out from behind a wall of fake shrubbery. Flipping his sword into a backhanded grip to account for the lack of clearance around him, he started to swing—

The shriek of terror stopped him, blade an inch from the cringing form.

The red leather of the coat bunched under his grasp, but the wearer was a bit shorter than he'd anticipated. That was about when he saw the other women huddled behind the old scenery, right when one of them surged up to her feet, eyes as incandescent as they could be without the artificial glow of mako, and jabbed two fingers in his direction. "What  _exactly_  do you think you're  _doing_?" she snapped, following and pushing her face right under his nose when he hastily released the woman he'd grabbed and took a couple of steps backward.

"You're a Soldier, aren't you?" the flood of vitriol continued. "I can see your eyes shine from across the  _room_. Is this what they teach you in Soldier camp these days? Attacking unarmed citizens that you're  _supposed_  to be _protecting_?" Each sharp question was accompanied by another jab of nails into his collar.

"I... uh..." Cloud glanced frantically back and forth between the spokesperson and the others still hunched in the dark. A couple of them had the gangly look of teenagers. His mouth worked uselessly. "I—what are you _wearing_?" he managed.

The woman frowned, looking down at herself before drawing herself up again. "This happens to be a genuine replica of Genesis's red leather coat, hand-crafted exclusively for discerning members of the Red Leather fanclub, not that  _you'd_  understand the concept of fine taste—"

She didn't seem like she was going to stop anything soon, so Cloud quickly waved his hands in defeat. "Okay okay. Okay!" He bulled through her nasty look. "Fine, fine. But if you're hiding here, you probably already know that the city is under attack, right?" There were a couple of nods. "One of the Ge—" Shit, bad idea. "—monsters is currently at large in this theatre," he corrected himself, "so I'm going to need you to evacuate until I and my colleague deal with the intruder."

Ha, they looked suitably appeased by the cop show language, even if he was laying it on kind of thick.

He lifted his arms back the direction he'd come the way he'd seen the Security department direct traffic sometimes, gesturing encouraging as the group slowly worked their way to their feet. "Head to the entrance of the theatre, please," he said in his most official voice. "If you see a big man wearing shades, he's with us, and he'll keep you safe."

He watched carefully as they filed past him, moving towards the front of the stage. "Thanks for your cooperation," he said when one of the younger girls gave him an embarrassed look.

It wasn't until they were almost around the bend that a thought struck him, and he raised his voice hurriedly. "And I'd ditch the coats for now, if I were you!"

The woman who'd yelled at him spun around with a glare and flipped him the bird a moment before she moved out of sight.

Cloud was still staring, jaw slackened, when the tap of footsteps on wood sounded from the other direction, and Reno appeared like a disembodied red gash, the way his suit blended into the darkness. The Turk made a face when he saw Cloud.

"Oh, it's a circle, huh," Reno said as he approached. "Find anything, yo? I heard shouting."

"No, just a few civilians who'd taken shelter here."

Reno let out an aggrieved sigh, bringing his hands up to drag his fingers through the fringe of red standing around his face. "How are we gonna deal with this shit, yo? I mean, it's like looking for a..." he paused, his mouth twisting, "a, a  _red_  thing in a whole bunch of other red things."

Cloud scowled at the Turk. "Well, last time he showed up," he said, "he seemed to be attracted to noise." Reno looked at him sideways, something flinty in his eyes. Cloud crossed his arms as he tilted his head up. "Isn't that _your_  specialty, Turk?"

"Right," Reno said, turning to face him fully, "and  _you're_  not the preachy prick what can't shut up about saving every bitch you come across." He suddenly pitched his voice up an octave. "'Oh wahn-de-fuckin'-wahn! Let's help 'em all! Oh my bleedin' heart!'"

Cloud pulled his lips back over his teeth to growl. "It's my _job_!"

The Turk wasn't done yet, his voice rising with every second word. "You Soldiers are all the same, yo! Always so fuckin' obsessed with what you  _should_  be doin' and what people  _think_  of you that you miss everything that's _actually_  important!"

"It's called  _honour_ , you motherfucker, and you wouldn't know it if it jumped up and bit you on the ass!"

"Of course  _you_  would know, Blondie, the way you pets sit around all day lickin' your  _own_  assholes—"

Reno whirled around, soles squeaking against the boards underfoot, bringing up his electromag rod to block the Genesis copy's charge. The force of the blow still knocked the Turk back into Cloud, sending them both reeling.

Cloud put his foot down on something that slithered under him, ripping all traction out from beneath his boot, and he went down hard.

Groaning, he pressed an unsteady hand to his head, trying to suppress the nausea pushing up at this throat. He didn't see what the thing he'd hit his head on was, but the jarring clang he'd heard meant it was either metallic or he'd cracked his skull and his ears were working about as well as the swooping blackness in his vision.

He hissed, unsure of whether his eyes were open.

"Oi, Strife, look sharp!"

Reno's voice sounded blurry, like it was coming from multiple directions at the same time. Shit, he was—

He fumbled for his sword. The comforting weight in his hands, he looked up, blinking rapidly until the black edges receded and he was looking up the length of the clone's curved dagger as it knifed down toward him.

Oh  _fuck_ —he lurched into an awkward twist away, knowing he wasn't going to be able to fully evade the slash, but—

There was a roar that could only have been designed to drag attention towards its origin, and Cloud gave himself whiplash snapping his head up to see Reno bearing down on the clone, sparking rod lifted above his head before starting its crushing descent.

His momentum bore both clone and Turk into a stand of painted scenery in a confusion of tangled limbs and flying splinters.

Struggling to his feet, Cloud skidded over to the brawlers. He had to bring up a hand to shield his face from a rogue kick, but then he reached out, snagged the back of the suit, where shards of wood were still lodged in some of the tears, and yanked. Reno reeled when Cloud pushed him off to the side, moments before he brought down his sword in a way that the tapering tip severed the clone's spine on its way to bite into the varnished planks underfoot. He stood still for a while, leaning on the pommel, his heart still hammering into his throat.

When Cloud turned away from the suddenly limp body, Reno was bent over, hands on his knees as he breathed hard.

The Turk nodded jerkily when he saw Cloud watching him, and he stood slowly, pressing a hand to his side.

"You hurt?"

Reno waved a dismissive hand, and the other one glowed green. When it subsided, he finally straightened, letting out a long sigh.

Cloud shifted, feeling awkward as hell. "Uh," he said. He stopped, and nodded. "Thanks."

Reno grinned lopsidedly. "Don't worry about it, yo. We ShinRa dogs gotta stick together, you know?"

"Dogs?" Cloud frowned. The Turk had seemed to drag out the word.

"Yeah. Ya know. Dawwwwwwgs."

Cloud snorted. "Right." He sidestepped the widening pool of blood leaking into the space under the stage. "I meant thanks for playing along."

There was a snicker. "Wasn't that hard."

Cloud knew Reno could probably see it when he rolled his eyes, but... "You meant every word, didn't you?"

Reno looked back at him dryly, hands tucked into his pockets. "Tch, so did you."

The silence stretched, stiff and muffled. Then Cloud huffed out a sharp breath. "Yeah, forget it. I know." He'd almost turned away before the Turk suddenly let out a loud sigh, bringing a hand up to scrub at the back of his head, where his red tail hung.

"The way I see it, it's bastards like this what hurt people," Reno said, his words a rush as he jerked his chin at the cooling corpse at Cloud's feet. "It's my job to get him, not to fuss around with everyone who might have gotten messed up along the way, yo."

The Turk shrugged as Cloud watched him.

"The faster I do my job, the fewer people  _need_  savin'." He made an abrupt face, swivelling away. "Shit, man, never thought I'd see the day where I'd have to explain myself to a  _Soldier_."

Cloud felt his mouth pull into a weird smile. He hadn't thought he'd get an answer, either. Then it faded again, and he closed his eyes. "That's not good enough," he said quietly. "For me. I get what you mean, but..." He shook his head. "Yeah, it's not enough."

Reno pulled his face into a grimace. "Yeah, yeah, I know. Soldier, and all." He slouched forward, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. "Well? Get going, yo. Don't you have more people to save or nothin'?"

Cloud bit down on a grin. The Turk's street Midgar accent seemed to get thicker or thinner depending on what Reno felt like at the moment. "What about—"

"Oh, don't you worry about this guy." Reno nudged the body with a toe before turning to fix Cloud with a toothy grin. "This here's  _Turk_  business," he said.

Cloud snorted again.

* * *

**TBC**

So yeah, looks like we're puttering around in whatever passes as Cloud's version of canon CC for a chapter or two.

(Speaking of AU, ever wondered what it would be like if Cloud never joined Avalanche, and it was instead him and Zack against ShinRa/the world?

And no, Zack didn't mysteriously survive:)

Cloud bared his teeth in a grin as he sheathed the thin curve of the Yoshiyuki with a quick flourish.

"Ha!" he said. "What do you think of that, Zack? Got Palmer good, didn't I?"

There was a grunt of acknowledgement.

"Yeah, I know, but come on. Where's the challenge in gutting a loser like that?" He trotted over to the small plane resting on the turf, smelling faintly of metal and polish. "Now, how do I get this thing up and running?"

"Gahh."

"Shut up, Zack. It beats walking."

"Guuuuaaagh-gurgle."

Cloud spun around to glare. "Hey. Hey! Stop that!" He scowled at the vaguely guilty look in Zack's milky glazed eyes, globs of thick yellow fat and bleeding strips of stringy tissue already caked to the sides of his mouth. "What did I say about reducing the cholesterol in your diet?"

(Cough)


	11. Picardy the Pitch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and settings are property of Square Enix. No profit is being sought from the writing of this fanfiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
> 
> Uh. Look. See. There's this game. It's called Project X (cross) Zone, and it is the most chaotic, fantastic, triple-stuffed serving of massive crossover fanservice that could have ever been imagined outside of fanfiction. It plays like an sRPG, with all the incomprehensible plot to go along with it, right up until the point at which you get into an enemy encounter, and then, and then, it plays like Street Fighter. Albeit a weird turn-based version. With Fire Emblem style counters on the map. And, well... I'm sorry. Yeah. Also, I might as well just mention now that that with Shin Megami Tensei 4's release in less than two weeks, I should probably just apologize in advance for the delay in the next part. I mean... Not that I seem to keep to any sort of update schedule anyway...
> 
> Right, indulgent nattering aside, another disclaimer. Since I'd decided that I'd follow the Crisis Core plotline as long as this fic runs parallel to it, there have been some fairly drastic changes in order to avoid flat out parroting the game. To anyone who's played CC, the overall shape of this section will be very familiar, but as I said, kind of AU.
> 
> The Great Edit of 2015: Not a huge amount changed beyond a cleaning. Some changes to the reactor dialogue for clarity.

**Part 10.**  Picardy the Pitch

Cloud braced a heel against the red armour and yanked. His sword came loose reluctantly, the Genesis copy's flesh sucking at the edges of the blade. Pulling a face at the way the scent of blood seemed to coat the back of his mouth, he stepped back and glanced around. Black-red mud squelched underfoot.

There didn't seem to be any more of them around.

Cloud pressed a wrist over his temple and grimaced. The bleeding from the gash he'd gotten when a clone had sent him smacking into a street sign had slowed to a trickle, but it was crusting into his hair and making his scalp itch. The wild swipe he'd sent back at the clone had nearly severed the man's upraised arm before carving into the artery in his throat. Cloud had tried to wipe away the spray of blood that had hit his face, but judging from the stickiness, it hadn't worked.

A thin puddle was starting to form under the clone at his feet, the discarded dog-end of a cigarette twirling slowly as the flow picked it up and pushed it along at its edge.

He looked down at the congealing film over his sword, and he scowled, leaving it loose in his hand as he stepped over the body.

There was the start of a breathy groan, and then the voice cracked.

Cloud swung towards the sound, ignoring the way the asphalt slurped at his boots. He didn't see anything at first, what with the way the suit was a patch of shadow in more shadow, but then the Turk moved, sinking to the ground.

"Cissnei?"

She moaned again, tipping her head back against the wall behind her. Her gritted teeth were a slash of white against black.

It wasn't until Cloud dropped down onto his haunches in front of her that he saw the white-knuckled grip she had on her weapon arm. He could smell it by that point, anyway.

Half of her sleeve had burned away, the remaining strips hanging from a thin, stiff little string that looked like the fibres of her clothing had melted together into something that was almost plastic. The skin itself looked like charcoal, bright red cracks splitting the shell and weeping rivulets of clear fluid. Further up her arm, it gave way to angry crimson. Glistening blisters studded the burn, crowded together like pebbles lining a shore.

She was radiating more heat than a furnace.

"Fuck," Cloud hissed, almost reaching out for her before realizing what he was doing. He yanked his hands back."Fuck fuck fuck."

Her eyes didn't open, but a shaky breath whistled from her mouth. A sick grey colour was starting to wash over her face.

" _Fuck_." Cloud felt his fingers curl and straighten helplessly, watching her slack jaw, holding his breath for some reason—so he could hear hers—and his lungs were starting to burn a bit, and he had about as good a chance at dealing with this as he had of beating Tseng at chess. His limited field first aid had generally been about plugging up any holes he could manage to find. He could just about put out a fire, but not when it was inside, underneath someone's skin. He definitely didn't have anything that could fix this because—shit, she looked  _cooked_ —it wasn't like he could pull water out of his ass and he didn't have time to haul her back to HQ, not while her skin turned to wax as blood drained away from her face and she was barely breathing in little shallow wheezes—

It took a while for Cloud to realize that the steady hissing he was hearing wasn't just his pulse rushing through his ears. He reached out, hesitated, and scooped his arms under her.

Cissnei made a noise that was half agony and half protest when he tried to slide her up against his shoulder while she was kind of dead weight and he was trying to avoid brushing her arm up against anything. With a muttered apology, Cloud lurched to his feet. He staggered, nearly overbalancing, and  _fuck_  he was jostling her arm. Fresh cracks seeped pink, but she barely reacted beyond a ragged exhale.

When he probably wasn't going to either drop her or trip over his own feet, Cloud took off in a sort of weird shuffling sidle down an alley, moving as quickly and smoothly as he could manage toward where he could hear the roar of the fountain.

Sector 8 was where the cultural bourgeoisie hung out, doing whatever the hell it was they did with all their time and gil. The theatre was there, just by the Fountain Square. At some point in the past, ShinRa had ponied up the cash to build the massive, gaudy fountain sitting in its centre. The big central spout was carved with representations of famous scenes from Loveless, or so he'd heard. He hadn't exactly made a point of coming around to inspect it, or to watch a performance or anything. In hindsight, it might have helped. He'd been clueless when Genesis had started quoting from the play.

It felt like forever before he saw the glow of lamplight filtering through the other end of the alley. Cloud rounded a cluster of trash cans and edged out from the narrow mouth of the path into the square. Mist settled clammily against his face, beading on his eyelashes and making him blink over and over.

Pausing, he eyed the murky water. Balls. He hadn't thought this far ahead.

He considered maybe balancing her on the edge and dangling her arm over the side, but that sounded retarded even in his head, and so he settled on swinging his legs up and just wading into the thing. The water was freezing, gurgling as it swirled into his boots and soaked up his pants, and she actually screamed, short and strangled, when he propped himself against the side of the basin and leaned over to tilt her until her charred arm tipped into the water, but fuck, it wasn't as if he had anything better, and it wasn't like she wasn't already dying.

It took a couple of tries, but he managed to wedge her against one arm and fumble for his pocket with the other. He didn't drop his PHS somehow, either, while he was thumbing rapidly through the call log and wishing the device could spontaneously become voice-activated, or hell, telepathic, but then he found the entry and Tseng picked up on the second ring.

* * *

His legs were threatening to cramp up. Cloud forced himself to keep moving, fighting the combination of ice-water chill and forced inactivity, and the thudding of the rescue chopper slowly tapered out overhead. Near the ShinRa tower, the buildings weren't that tall—he remembered some sniggering about President ShinRa making sure of this, and what he was compensating for, back in the barracks—but with the way they crowded, the chopper had vanished from sight long before the sound of its blades faded.

Whatever Cissnei had tried to tell them before they'd rushed her off, it hadn't been incredibly coherent, but there was at least one more enemy out there. That much he got.

And this one had been sneaky enough to use one of the Genesis copies as bait.

There was one of them on the side of the street, red armour shredded by what looked like an entire magazine of bullets. Judging by how black the blood was, he'd died a while ago. Cloud ignored the corpse.

With the body count he'd racked up since ShinRa had figured out that he was good at killing things without getting killed back, it was sort of a lot easier to just... keep moving. He wasn't about to start getting sensitive about it.

It helped that the clones attacked him on sight with the sort of mindless aggression that he'd only ever come across in those Razorweed things he'd seen in Wutai. Even the huge wolves that lived up Mt. Nibel had eyed him suspiciously before vanishing into the shadows when he'd been a dumb kid, stupid enough to barge into their territory on a dare. With the rumours—not to mention the reports about the shitload of people who'd followed Genesis when he'd vanished—it wasn't that hard to figure out that the clones probably hadn't always been clones. But that almost made it worse, the thought that the soldiers, or at least some of them, had probably... volunteered. Out of some kind of loyalty or hero worship or something. For Genesis.

And Genesis. Hell. Cloud had fuck-all idea of what to do if he ran into Genesis. He didn't know what he was supposed to think of Genesis, who'd never so much as spoken to him before all this. And the us-versus-them thing didn't really work with Genesis, who  _hadn't_  attacked him. Who'd saved his damn life when he'd gotten a knife in the back and was spilling his guts all over the floor. Who was Angeal's friend.

He still didn't know what the man wanted. Or the fuck the "gift of the goddess" was, anyway.

Wind whined in his ear.

Every hair on the back of his neck stood up, and he wrenched himself out of the way of the blade coming towards him at head height. The clone shifted his swipe into a downward cleave in one fluid movement, and the shine of an overhead lamp turning the blade into nothing but a gleaming arc. Afterimages burned their reversed colours into Cloud's retinas as he thumped a palm onto the pebbled pavement to propel himself into a backward twist and brought up his sword in a backhanded swing.

Dimly, he wondered if he'd imagined hearing the click of a gun cocking. The copies didn't use firearms, did they?

Metal rang as it smacked into metal, scraping and pushing. Off balance, Cloud could only hold the block long enough for him to backpedal wildly. He stumbled up the curb behind him, dug his boots into the ground, and tensed to prepare for the next spring—

The crack of a gunshot went off, far too loud to be from one of the Turks' shady assassin's pieces, and Cloud froze. The clone's head jerked back, red helmet whipping to a side, a second before his legs folded like soggy cardboard under him and he crumpled.

Cloud craned his neck back and looked up into the familiar headlights of ShinRa Security. They turned slowly as they scanned the street, gleaming oily red off the stock of the rifle fitted into the man's shoulder. The helmet didn't cover as much as the ones worn by Thirds, but the glare from the bulbs set into its front panel cast whatever was exposed of the man's face into shadow anyway. An old poster on yellowed paper swooped past their legs on a sudden swirl of air just as Cloud turned to face the MP.

"Nice shot," he said lamely. The other guy obviously wasn't going to start talking first.

The man finally lowered his rifle, exposing the corporal's badge on his arm a second before he saluted stiffly. "Thank you, sir."

Cloud shrugged. A by-the-books kind of guy, huh. He glanced away from the red glow to the bare streets. "Any updates on whatever's going on down here?"

"ShinRa Security has the situation under control, sir," responded the level voice.

Oh hell.

Cloud stared into the helmet, where he figured the man's eyes would probably be. Maybe he'd look red to the MP through the visor, the same way green grittiness faintly edged the lines of the other man's uniform where not enough light hit to bring it into focus. Maybe the guy's eyes were burning a bit, too, straining as Cloud let the silence drag way too far beyond the awkwardness event horizon. A muscle jumped halfway down the man's neck, making the entire side of his jaw pinch.

Hah. Bastard.

"You trying to get rid of me, Corporal?"

The man didn't even twitch. "Not at all, sir—"

Movement.

Cloud darted around the corner of some concrete monstrosity after it. The street opened out into a broad intersection beyond the building, streetlights incinerating what shadows they hadn't chased to the corners. In the open, the figure pulled to a halt, rust-coloured helmet turning towards Cloud. Long daggers glinted orange. Before he'd had managed to do more than raise his sword and drop into his stance, gunfire sounded behind Cloud, the bullet's passage feeling far too close to his ear for comfort, and the Genesis copy dropped like an empty sack.

"—But ShinRa Security can handle the intruders," the corporal finished.

He'd probably be smirking if his face wasn't glued into its impassive wall.

Cloud glowered back at the man.

He heard the flutter of thick fabric a second before he saw the glint of metal over the corporal's shoulder, but he was already moving. Fisting a hand in the man's rifle harness and wrenching him around, Cloud watched what was visible of his face contort in surprise with a spike of satisfaction he didn't bother hiding. He brought up his sword in a wide arc, and the outstretched blade glanced off, sending the wielder's charge veering to the side.

A starling wing snapped out, pulling the man into a gentle hover a full body length above the concrete sidewalk, and he turned to regard them with hard eyes. Mako blazed, unobscured by any kind of headpiece, and Cloud's pulse hammered into his throat. The off colour of the streetlights turned the hair and coat to blood.

"And how is ShinRa Security going to handle  _him_?" Cloud hissed through his teeth, watching Genesis carefully. The corporal struggled to regain his footing, hands clamped over Cloud's wrist as he pulled his legs back under him.

"Isn't that the First?" the corporal said, a quiet gasp. Right then, he sounded really young. Probably was, given how many kids aiming for Soldier prep started out in Security.

Cloud let go of the harness, pressed his hand flat over the MP's collar, and shoved.

As the corporal staggered back, Cloud stepped forward, gripping his sword in both hands. The eyes followed him.

It was the bland glaze over the face that tipped him off.

"You're a clone, too, aren't you?"

And then his knees hit the asphalt hard when he threw himself under a barrage of fireballs. They spat viciously as they sailed over his head. When he saw the clone readying the next volley, he snatched hastily at his sword. Ice crackled out of the atmosphere as the materia digging into his hand sang to life, and solid crystals spun into place, snapping and tasting of tin. They sailed straight down into the fire's paths as they fell.

Travers had been big on fire magic, too. Cloud had thought privately at one point that it had something to do with aggression. Robertsson hadn't done anything to disprove the idea, either, but he wasn't about to bring it up with the guy.

He'd heard that there'd been casters strong enough to freeze fire solid, sometime in the past. He sure didn't have that ability. But fire was all power and instability, relying on its spin to hold it together, and he figured he might be able to use the ice for disruption. He'd done it before, countering Travers, that time they'd gotten bored enough to get into a brawl on assignment in the middle of fucking nowhere. Or at least deflect it if he screwed up the timing.

Against the Genesis copy's fire, the ice chunks did nothing, vaporizing instantly with pathetic little sizzles barely audible over the roar of the flames, and they were  _still_  shooting straight at his face. He wrenched himself into a roll again.

The acrid scent of singed hair made his eyes water.

Rocking to his feet behind the clone, Cloud launched himself up into the air. He aimed for the blind spot between the clone's wing—fuck, he had a  _wing_ , and it smelled like wings, too, that greasy stench he'd always associated with waterfowl feathers—and its other shoulder blade, where he wouldn't be able to evade fully, not at the rate he was turning on a dipped wingtip—

With an ear-numbing screech, Cloud's thrust hit steel. The crimson rapier he'd forgotten the Genesis copy had been holding, given the way he'd been spewing magic like he thought he was a firedrake. The clone's other hand rose, blazing orange, and Cloud sucked in a sharp breath. Twisting desperately, he pulled on whatever was left of his momentum, curling his knees up and lashing a leg out just in time to catch his shin against the clone's wrist. The fire flew wide as Cloud kicked off, tumbling back and away.

He landed badly. His leg buckled, sending him into a skid that scraped the skin off of his elbow.

When he wasn't immediately roasted on the spot, Cloud blinked and looked up.

The corporal was firing relentlessly on the clone, his mouth his grim line as he shot round after round. The red blade blurred, deflecting the bullets one after another. Something smashed loudly, off to the side. He'd gotten the clone at least once, though. Red was seeping through the feathers, leaving stark splotches where it touched skin. The damaged wing was drooping. It batted at the air, struggling to keep the Genesis copy afloat and tugging him into a drunken tilt. He was sinking, boots nearly grazing the ground.

Then the clone hissed angrily. It made him sound like a rabid goose, but it was still the first sound Cloud had ever heard one of them make, and probably the first the corporal had heard, too, since it gave him enough pause to let the clone fire off a rapid volley of magic at them. As the corporal backpedalled, the Genesis copy pivoted on what remained of his wing and started to pump for height.

It was trying to run away.

Cloud struggled to his feet. Baring his teeth in a snarl, he crouched, legs bunching beneath him. And he jumped.

The clone had cleared the second story of the nearby office complex before Cloud reached him. He could tell because through the burnished steel and tinted glass that made up the entirety of the building's façade, colourless faces stared out at them with wide eyes and open mouths. With a wordless yell, Cloud bunched his fingers into the stiff leather lining the clone's collar with one hand, and he brought down his sword with the other.

Under the fleshy tearing sound, there were the feeble cracks of hollow bones snapping. The clone's wing ripped free from his back, shearing raggedly beneath the gore-blunted edge of Cloud's sword. It peeled off thin, bloody strips of skin as it parted.

The clone screamed, a shrill sound more bird than human. It whirled in midair, somehow contorting enough to take a swing at Cloud, but the rapier spun off into the darkness when Cloud brought up a hand in a hasty block. His entire arm went numb. Then, the clone screamed again as they fell.

Cloud wasn't sure how he ended up on top. He wasn't sure of anything beyond the claw-hooked fingers that had been scrabbling at his face and the sense of vertigo as they tumbled. But when they hit the ground, he had a scratch etched up his chin, his arms were stinging with road rash, and he could see the unnatural bend of the clone's neck under him. Feathers were settling around him, sticking to the blood dribbling from his scrapes and turning a mottled reddish black.

Prying himself up off the ground, he eyed the Genesis copy. Face down, the clone's shoulder blades humped out strangely under the red leather. The portion of the wing that he hadn't lost stuck out from his back at a weird angle, and a jagged spar of bone poked out from under the dirty feathers. Taking a couple of quick steps back, Cloud let out a long breath before he sheathed his sword, gunk and all.

He was plucking off the fluff clinging to his skin when the corporal edged over to the body and prodded the exposed wing. It bent slightly before popping up back into place, and the MP cursed softly under his breath.

Cloud laughed, short and humourless. "Yeah. Birdman."

He'd started sifting through his crusty hair for any stray feathers by the time a military truck rounded the corner on two wheels and a tortured squeal of rubber. It passed them with a dull roar, fishtailed to a stop, and then Reno had his head sticking out of the window.

"Yo, Soldier!"

Cloud's teeth clacked together when he shut his mouth.

The Turk flapped a hand at him and said, "The bossman said to give him a ring when you're done here."

Done?

Cloud let his eyes flit over the intersection. Scorch marks splattered over the asphalt, and an entire section of the sidewalk was nothing more than a slide of rubble. The Genesis copy lay in a crumpled heap at the base of a set of traffic lights. When the corporal caught him looking, the guy snapped to perfect attention.

"Bossman?" Cloud said slowly, furrowing his brow.

Shit. Whatever adrenaline had gotten him through that clusterfuck was fading. Dimly, he realized that he could feel himself weaving where he stood.

Reno eyed him for a long moment, and then he said, "We'll give you a lift."

* * *

Cloud's jaw made a low creaking noise as he stifled a yawn. He'd fallen asleep in the back of the truck, and while his eyes still felt like they had sand under the lids, his arms were steady as he clambered down the ladder. Letting go, he dropped down the last couple of feet and thumped onto pebbled metal. The planks of the catwalk spanned the empty space above the bulk of mako reactor five.

Lifting himself up to his feet, Cloud scanned the area. It stretched the length of a couple of airship hangers across, and sank down into darkness below. At the bottom of the chasm, the grates were shut, so only smears of lurid green sludge clinging to the walls gave away the concentrated mako shut in at the bottom.

Ahead, a couple of streetlengths down the line, the General turned around at the noise. He beckoned absently when he saw Cloud.

Cloud glanced down into the pit again. Maybe it was the way his nerves were strung higher than a kite, or maybe it was just the vertigo, a sense of depth falling below, but he had to swallow hard to keep the queasiness in his stomach.

He hated reactors. The people back in Nibelheim had always spat when they referred to the one squatting up in the mountains. The bitterness and resentment of a dying town tended to linger, even if Cloud hadn't been old enough to really get it. And then there was the war.

He'd trotted halfway down the walkway when the thunderous crash sounded behind him, and the entire catwalk started bouncing like a trampoline. Shooting a hand out to clutch at a railing, Cloud spun around. Another crash, the way he'd been going, made the planks buck again and smash him ribs-first into the guardrail. Wheezing, Cloud whipped his head one way, and then the other.

Monsters. They'd jumped down out of somewhere up above, and they'd landed hard enough that he could see dents in the metal under their reptilian claws. They straightened on their hind legs, man height, wicked looking tridents in what had to be their hands. Scales glinted on one of the serpentine necks as it twisted its head from one side to the other. It looked like it was trying to figure out what to make of him. Cloud didn't see any eyes anywhere near its elongated muzzle, though.

Then, he was dancing backward to avoid a jab at his gut, yanking his sword free of its sheath as he went. There was a horrible scraping sound when he caught the next blow on the edge of his blade, but he stepped into the block, following as his sword slid up the spear shaft, and he shoved hard. The monster's weapon flew upward when it reeled. The thing had the advantage of reach, but if he could just get in under its guard, where it wouldn't be able to attack—

It swung at him again, and Cloud leaned into the block. He only had half a second to regret his idiocy when it suddenly pulled back and he pitched forward, because the butt end of the pole was swinging around, coming at him at head height. It whistled by over his skull when he let his legs just sag, turning his fall into a swivel that let him slide under the monster's arms. When he came up again, he was facing the thing's shell-covered back. It was awkward at close quarters, but he managed to bring his sword up parallel to the ground by his ear and drive the point forward into the base of the monster's neck with both hands.

He swore vehemently.

He hadn't managed to land a killing blow because the blade had caught on the thing's shell. Hanging onto the hilt as the monster started thrashing desperately, he leaned the entirety of his body weight into forcing his sword deeper into the oozing neck. Its tailed whipped at the side of his knee. Bit by spongy, sticky bit, the blade sank into the monster's flesh, sawing through the edge of the shell. Cloud kept bearing down as the monster slowly toppled, claws lashing out futilely until it lay flat on its belly. The odd spasm shook its body, but it didn't look like it was about to get back up, and eventually, that stopped too.

His breath coming in shallow pants, Cloud left his sword sticking half out of the monster's back as he took a couple of staggering steps backward. He hit the railing. Snatching hold of the bar to try to still the shaking in his arms, Cloud looked up.

Sephiroth was just sheathing his weapon, the other monster's body prone at his feet. Its head was nowhere to be seen. He glanced at the thing that still had Cloud's sword jutting out of it, but he didn't make the comment Cloud had been expecting on the ugly kill. Instead, the First stepped forward, eyes narrowing as he inspected the downed monster.

Swallowing his final gasps for air, Cloud propped himself up. He skirted around the monster's bulk. He'd seen weird flashes of colour on the thing's crown earlier, but the monster had been too big for him to see the top of its head. Now, finally, the thing was exposed where it lay.

The queasiness in his stomach turned into full-out nausea, and the ground tilted wildly under his feet. Gleaming metal made indistinct smudges before his eyes, uncertain of whether it wanted to be floor or ceiling, and he toppled forward, hands slowly coming up to try to maybe—

A solid hand clamped over his shoulder, warm even through the slick leather of its glove.

Cloud blinked, realizing that he was leaning drunkenly over the guardrail, nothing but black pit in front of his eyes. Sucking in a sharp breath, he lurched backward. He swayed for a second, but his knees held. Blinking again, he looked up at the General.

"Thanks," he rasped.

Sephiroth nodded once, letting go when Cloud stayed satisfactorily steady.

He swallowed the spit pooling in the sides of his mouth, eyes drawn back to the face worn on the monster's head like a mask. "Why is Angeal's face on this thing?" he said, voice hoarse and grainy.

"It's a clone, like the Genesis copies," Sephiroth said grimly. "I suppose they're not restricted to human copies."

"They?"

Sephiroth nudged the silvery tuft of fur on one of the clone's shoulders with a boot. "This is Hollander's style. He liked to... embellish his work." He straightened. "The technology used to create the clones must have been stolen from ShinRa's Science department."

Cloud could hear his blood rushing through his ears. Just like Wutai.

Something must have shown on his face, because Sephiroth gave him a sharp look. Then, like a door slamming shut, his eyes went blank and cold. The First turned to him fully as he spoke.

"We've received reports that Angeal has been sighted. Genesis will be close, as well. Standing orders are to eliminate them."

Cloud wasn't sure what Sephiroth had said at first. Then, as his brain caught up with his ears, his mouth went dry, like he'd stuffed forty cotton packs into his cheeks and gums. His jaw worked, no sound coming from his vocal cords. He swallowed hard, and he tried again. " _What?_ "

"The regular army will perform the assault."

 _What?_  "And me?" Cloud spat. "I'm supposed to hunt them down? They're  _Soldiers_. They  _deserve_  at least—"

"They are no longer Soldiers, Strife. You are."

"Even more reason! Honour! It's in the job description! That's the  _first_  thing—"

"You appear to forget what you are, Soldier Second Class Strife," Sephiroth cut through his words, his voice razor-edged. "You are a Soldier of the ShinRa Electric Power Company. Your job description is to follow the orders you are given by your superiors."

Later, Cloud was pretty sure he would blame the exhaustion for the lack of control he had over his mouth, the thirty six hours and counting that he'd gone without sleep. He was pretty sure he'd look back on this, cringe, and try to drown himself in a toilet bowl. But for now, he stared at the General. He felt hot. "That's what it means to be a Soldier?" His jaw ached with how tightly he'd pressed his teeth together. He sucked in a breath through his nose, and it sounded painfully loud. "I won't let you," he ground out. "I don't care if you can spit me before I move. I'll stop you."

Sephiroth looked back at him, utterly unreadable. Finally, bewilderingly, he snorted, barely audible. "Come on, we can get to them first if we hurry," he said.

Cloud blinked rapidly, lightheaded at the sudden change in the man's tone. "And do what?" he asked cautiously. "Kill them?"

Sephiroth had already started down the catwalk, boots clanking against the metal. "And fail to eliminate them," he said calmly, without turning his head.

Cloud watched blankly.

"If anyone else finds them first, they'll attack." It sounded like… an explanation. "But I think Angeal will at least hesitate when he sees you." Sephiroth paused, tilting his head over his shoulder as he glanced back. "Move it, Soldier."

Cloud stood, frozen in place as the General started walking again. He didn't think—

"Did I pass your test?" He said through rigid lips. He didn't think he'd ever met such a huge fucking asshole. "Sir?"

Sephiroth stopped.

After a long, stilted silence, he said, "Come, Strife."

"I respectfully decline, sir," Cloud ground out.

Silence again.

"I can find Angeal alone."

Sephiroth finally turned, slowly, to face Cloud. The First stared at him, and for one breathless moment Cloud thought he was going to die before he could shit himself, but then the mako eyes closed. Like he'd come to a decision. "What happened in Wutai, Strife?" He said coolly.

It was like getting slapped in the face with ice water. Cloud felt the blood drain from his head. "Sir?" he said faintly.

"I'm requesting your report, Strife. What happened on your mission to Wutai? Where are the prisoners you intended to rescue?"

"Are you..." Serious? Cloud, on some numb level, decided with complete certainty that he hated General Sephiroth.

And then Sephiroth opened his eyes, and for a moment, he looked just about as haggard as Cloud felt. Like someone who knew it was going to be bad and was just  _waiting_ —

"I asked you to come here because I wanted answers. I thought you would like some as well," the First said, watching him dully.

He could have lied. He'd thought that he was going to have to.

"The Wutai ran experiments on them," Cloud said, his voice low. "They weren't... There wasn't anyone left, by the time we got there."

Sephiroth was listening silently.

"They attacked us. We lost a Third." His hand drifted absently towards the latest in his collection of scars. He stopped, dropped it before it reached its destination, and he shrugged. "I destroyed the laboratory and base with them inside."

"The prisoners."

"The monsters."

Sephiroth didn't react, and in the quiet, Cloud ploughed ahead. "They had records. They recorded the identities of all of their subjects and exactly what they did to them, and what they turned into. I destroyed the records. I mean, I know I was supposed to bring back the information, at least." Fuck, he was babbling. "I know I should have—I mean. But right now, they're on that memorial stone because they died as heroes, and I—"

"What were the experiments for?" Sephiroth interrupted. It was probably out of pity.

Cloud snapped his mouth shut. Frowning, he scoured his memory, searching through the fragments of screaming, hallucinations, and dying. "I'm not really sure. It was something Genesis was looking for."

"Genesis?" Sephiroth said quickly.

"He was there. He told me... something about the experiment subjects all degrading. And that they were using ShinRa technology that he'd given them, although I think he sabotaged it somehow. I'm pretty sure they'd been at it for a really long time." He thought about it again, and he spread his hands helplessly. "I couldn't really understand him."

Sephiroth was running a thumb over the hilt of the Masamune, a thoughtful scowl on his face. "I do remember that Genesis was the one who first proposed a connection between the Promised Land and Wutai. The President became interested in Wutai after that. I thought it was a coincidence, but..."

When he didn't continue, Cloud gnawed on a lip, and he said, "So... what? Genesis was trying to cover his tracks?"

Sephiroth made a vague hum. "I don't know," he said eventually. "The war probably would have started anyway." His mouth twisted humourlessly. "It's ShinRa."

He didn't give Cloud much time to be surprised at the weird edge to his voice before he jerked his head the way he'd been going.

"Let's go. Best way to find out is to ask them."

* * *

Cloud stared into the smothering strands of green. It was another clone pod, just like the ones he'd seen back in Banora.

Seeing it again, it was fucking obvious how similar they looked to the mako immersion tanks in the underground base in Wutai.

He felt like an idiot.

Inside, another monster—clone—thing bobbed slowly, Angeal's placid face grafted to the top of its head. It looked eerily alive, like it was going to open its eyes at any minute, peering out at him from a face plastered where there shouldn't be a face. As he watched, the bloodless mouth seemed to gently part.

Cloud took a shuddering breath, and he turned his head away from the pod.

Sephiroth was still reading some kind of report he'd found. There'd been a lab hidden away near the bottom of the reactor, practically at base-plate level. Maybe Hollander tossed his trash out that way. The First hadn't looked that surprised to have found the place, though, so he'd kept his mouth shut.

Cloud shuffled over to the cluttered desk in the corner. There were more sheets of paper there, the odd candy wrapper tucked in between the pages. Cloud flipped through them, trying to scan the text, but it was written in some sort of shorthand scrawl that made his head swim. "Prj G" came up a few times.

Shutting his eyes to try to stave off the headache, Cloud let the papers drop.

This far down in the bowels of the plate, the air was a bit rank, even with the hidden fans humming their whiny drone overhead. The fluorescent bulb in the corner had one of those audible flickers, snap snapping whenever the light strobed.

Cloud ran his tongue over the surface of his teeth. They were fuzzy, like he'd tried to bite into a week's worth of mould. Drumming his nails against the table, he peered around the small room.

"Keep searching, Strife," Sephiroth ordered without looking up.

"For what?" On the bright side, he wasn't anywhere near as terrified of the General, not after that... whatever it had been in the main hull of the reactor. He snatched up the papers sitting on the desk next to him and waved them, sending a crinkly piece of plastic fluttering off. "How am I gonna be of any use in this situation?"

Sephiroth's eyes flicked up over his own reports. "What am I paying you for, then?" And the General himself had been acting, well, not exactly  _normal_ , but like he thought of Cloud as an ally, kind of.

"Looking good? Kicking ass?" Cloud deadpanned.

For a gut-wrenching second, he thought there'd be a short chuckle. But it never came, the man just giving him a dry look before nodding down at the papers in his hand, and Cloud forced himself to breathe again, and to focus on listening.

Because this wasn't Angeal.

"Hollander keeps at least some of his research notes here," Sephiroth was saying, leafing through a couple of pages. "This one mentions that his latest project was born a normal child." He tossed the stapled sheets back onto the shelf and reached for another. "Guess he failed."

"Born?" Cloud repeated quietly.

"Yes," was the even reply. "The subjects were unborn children. That was Project G."

Prj G.

It wasn't until Cloud heard the crunching of paper that he hastily loosened his grip and tried to smooth out the pages under his glove. "Shit," he muttered.

"Project Genesis," Sephiroth said, something hard in his tone. "Genesis was the successful product." He turned around suddenly, dropping his latest stack of paper onto the desk next to Cloud and picking up the one Cloud hadn't been able to decipher. "But these reports say that Genesis is deteriorating."

"Deteriorating?" Cloud said quickly. "Degrading?"

Sephiroth looked up sharply. "The experiments in Wutai," he said. He frowned as he flipped a page. "That makes sense. He'd be looking for a way to counteract this degradation." Shutting the booklet and flattening a palm over it, he leaned back. "And that explains why that wound wouldn't heal."

"What wound?"

Sephiroth flicked a couple of fingers briefly. "Training incident. But the wound wouldn't close afterward. And he couldn't accept blood for a transfusion from common sources."

"Because of Project G?" Cloud hazarded. At least the General looked like the pieces were falling into place for him, even if Cloud's brains felt like they were oozing out of his ears.

"Yes."

"What about that..." Cloud jerked a thumb at the tank set into the wall, hazy green light spilling from the portal. "That," he settled on. "I mean, I get that Genesis was special, but they're making those things out of Angeal now, too."

"Angeal was always—"

Whatever Sephiroth was going to say, it cut off at the subdued swoosh of the door sliding open. A man, lab coat hanging off his shoulders and grey streaking through his beard, froze with one step into the room and a half-eaten candy bar midway to his mouth.

"Se—Sephiroth!" he managed to stutter.

"I thought I'd find you here, Hollander," the General said blandly. "Is Angeal with you? We have some questions."

Another motionless moment passed, silent except for the whirring of the fans, before Hollander spun on his heel and ran, heavy footsteps echoing on metal flooring.

Cloud followed when Sephiroth darted through the closing door, only to backpedal wildly to avoid hurtling into the General's back when he came to an unexpected dead halt. Following the line of the red blade barring the corridor, Cloud looked into Genesis' shuttered face.

"Move," Sephiroth said, the word heavy and blunt.

"I will not let you pass."

Cloud let his hand inch towards the hilt of his sword as he settled down into a defensive stance in increments. But, watching the other First the entire time, Sephiroth spoke quietly. "Strife, go after Hollander."

"Huh?"

"That's an order, Soldier."

It was the way the words sounded, so similar to the last thing he'd heard Angeal say before he left, that gave him pause and made him hesitate.

But then Sephiroth snapped at him, "Strife!" and he dropped his hand, ducked low to skid under Genesis' weapon, barely flinching at the jarring clang over his head when Genesis swung down at him and clashed against the Masamune instead, and sprinted down the narrow hall.

* * *

It was, Cloud reflected, pretty damn unpleasant how similar the rabbit warren corridors threading through the reactor were to the tunnels of that base back in Wutai. It wasn't as if they looked similar in any way, cheap concrete compared to galvanized steel, but there was the same oppressive sense of weight. In the twisting pathways, the massive network of the same grey square rooms connected by identical grey plated floors, Cloud's enhancements were worth jack shit.

It occurred to him, barrelling through the third identical room to come out in an empty corridor extending both ways, that Hollander probably chose this place for that reason. The former head of Sciences probably knew Soldiers better than Soldiers knew their own limitations. Taking the right path randomly, Cloud dashed down the hall for all of three seconds before he had to brake for another turn. He couldn't build up any speed.

Hollander hadn't gotten that much of a head start on him, but Cloud hadn't managed to catch sight of even a stray thread from his coat. For all he knew, he was heading in entirely the wrong direction.

There was also the dense lump in the pit of his stomach that was telling him that he was lost.

But he kept going anyway, on the basis that at that point, forward was as good of a direction as any. He figured, on the off chance that he made it back without having to radio for a humiliating extraction from his own city, he was going to have to harass the guys over in Tech about adding reactor blueprints to the PHS map database.

Cloud tossed a cursory glance into a room to the side before deciding to stay on his current course. When he saw the blip of colour in the monotony inside the room, it wasn't moving. It took him a couple of seconds to realize that it had been human shaped.

He pulled himself to a stop, backtracked, and tilted his head just enough to see past the wall.

It  _was_  human shaped.

It was a little girl, dressed in a bright red dress, her red hair a mass of ringlets fanning out from her ponytail. She wasn't looking at Cloud. She didn't seem to be looking at anything, face fixed in a vapid mask, eyes going far too long between blinks.

"Hello?"

She didn't respond, staring straight ahead.

"What are you doing here?" Cloud slipped into the room, approaching hesitantly.

Her mouth opened slowly. "I belong here." Her voice was unnaturally clear for the bucolic glaze over her face. "You don't belong here," she chimed.

The sound of her voice faded, brittle chips of echoes that fell downwards, smashing against the smooth panels underfoot.

Cloud watched her. The air was a piercing chill against his suddenly hypersensitive skin. "Who are you?" he said.

Her eyes snapped to meet his, flecks of red in the brown. They opened, gaping wide, as she bared her teeth. "Genesis," she said, more breath than voice.

Cloud flattened himself to the wall just in time to let the roar of fire boil by in front of his face, scorching the ends of his hair and smelling of sharp ozone sting. Magic. "Holy—" He dropped, rolling furiously under the second shot. Slinging himself to his feet, he swung around, nearly tripped, and faced the girl. A hand clenched around his sword's hilt.

Her face had gone back to the passive lacquer, focused forward like she hadn't moved to begin with.

In increments, slow enough that Cloud thought he could hear her eyeballs creak as they rolled, she turned towards him. He tensed, ready to draw. Despite the intensity of the magic, she didn't move very quickly. Children only had so much mako tolerance. He was pretty sure he could get in there before she got off another shot. His broadsword didn't have the precision to go up through her ribs, but if he angled it so that it sliced into her spine...

" _Fuck_ ," Cloud snarled. He couldn't draw.  _Fuck_. Not when—

He made it out of the door in a flat dive. On more momentum than balance, he slammed into the opposite wall before bouncing off and clipping the other, chased the whole way by the scream of flame.

He hurtled down the hall, the sound of his boots hitting the metal drowning out any other sound, so it was some unnameable sense—a sharp jab of fear sliding up his nape—that made him duck, hands thrown up to cover his head. Heat licked the wall black where he'd been standing.

She was still coming.

Swallowing a wheeze, Cloud dug down, and he ran. Walls and rooms passed in dark blurs. He had no idea where he was going. He had no idea if he was actually getting anywhere, or if he was just spiralling deeper into the reactor levels. He ran, pulse thrumming in his ears.

So when the narrow hall flared out into wide, bright space that could only have been designed as an aircraft dock, and Hollander whirled around in horror before staggering back away from him in the centre of the gaping room, he wasn't sure which one of them was more surprised. The boards shifted under his boots when he stopped. This was absolute bottom level of the plate, nothing but a sheet or two of metal between them and open air. The temperature extremes had warped the floor over the years, so that they depressed noticeably when trodden upon. It really was damn bright. Even though they were still under the plate, they stood at the very edge. On the horizon, dawn was well under way.

"You!"

He wasn't sure which one of them shouted, either.

Cloud started forward, eyes slitting as he tugged his sword free—and then he was staring at a wall of gleaming black metal.

The Buster Sword barred his way, edge down, flat just inches from his face. This close, he could see the intricate scroll work etched into the spine.

"Angeal," Cloud said, his voice nothing but a tremor.

Gently dipping his head until he could look over the scratched armour on his shoulder, Angeal fixed him with slate eyes. "It's been a while, Cloud."

He looked... the same.

That observation only fed the rage.

Cloud had heard about the stages of loss before. One of the kids back in Nibelheim had liked to spend time sitting in front of the one shelf of books the residents had half-seriously called their library in the inn by the water tower. Then he'd distort the information when he spewed it back out to the people who'd only pretended to be listening. Cloud had never picked a fight with that boy, if only because he'd liked knowing that there was someone out there who people thought was weirder than he was. He'd gotten the bit on grief right, though.

Looking up at Angeal, Cloud felt every thread of the anger he thought he'd buried surge back, blistering hot in a way that sucked out every drop of water and left him parched like worn out leather. Roaring, boiling his veins. He wet his lips, tasting blood in the cracks.

"You know," he said, his voice like glass knives in his throat, "I thought that I wasn't pissed anymore. Thought it stopped after the first couple of months, when, you know, so many people were dead that after a while they just started blurring together." He wasn't sure if it was worse or not, the way Angeal's eyes flickered. "I thought all I wanted was to be able to talk to you again, and not put my fist through your face." Maybe it was the guarded looks he got when someone said Angeal's name. Maybe he'd told himself that it was fine, he was  _fine_ , because he just knew that he was lying— "Guess I was wrong."

Angeal watched him over the blade. He didn't even move, his back still turned to Cloud.

Cloud jerked his chin at the Buster. "Not too good to use that, now?"

With the familiar whisper of air on metal, Angeal hefted his sword away. Peering up the edge, he said conversationally, "No, still ornamental."

It was the way his voice still sounded so familiar, dry humour laced through every syllable, after months. He thought he'd forgotten— He wasn't— "Why did you leave? Why did you go with Genesis?" The words spilled in a half coherent rush. "What are you trying to do? What do you  _want_?"

Angeal's gaze flicked to him for a moment, and then back to the blade. "World domination."

"That's not  _funny_!" Cloud only realized that the last word had turned into a shriek when the ringing faded.

"Then what is funny?" Angeal said, sober and measured. "This?" An eye-watering ripple twisted under the fabric over his shoulder, and with a  _fmph_ , a turned out implosion of sound, white feathers burst free. "You tell me." Under the massive dominant wing, a smaller second one hung from its base. It drooped, formless and probably paralyzed. Every movement of the larger wing tugged the limp one along with it.

Cloud scowled, and he shook his head. "Stop it, Angeal."

"Stop what?" His mouth curved. "I'm a monster, Cloud. I can't just stop being a monster." If the Genesis copy reeked of rancid waterfowl, Angeal's wings smelled musty, like old, forgotten clothes. Cloud watched the faint distaste that drifted over the man's face every time he saw them. They were white enough to glow in the low light.

Cloud shook his head harder. "I said stop it! You're not a monster!"

"No?"

Fast enough that he couldn't do anything more than tense, there was a fist in his gut. It lifted him off his feet and drove every bit of air from his lungs. He hung, airborne for what seemed like an eternity, and then his back slapped down onto the floor and there were black spots dancing in his vision as he curled reflexively on his side. His fingers clawed into the chilly ground while he gagged hard. Static filled his ears.

"You see, Cloud." Angeal's voice was soft, like it came from a long way away. "You can't reason with monsters. Monsters don't want anything. Monsters just destroy."

"Angeal," Cloud rasped, trying to wedge himself up on stuttering elbows.

He'd thought he seen Angeal angry before, over the years. The First had been the most even-tempered of the three, but Cloud had seen the flashes of anger that had cooled almost immediately to exasperation. He'd seen the resigned irritation when Heidegger had demanded something of the Soldier department like it was his right. But this coldness, mirror-smooth and buried under the sharpness of a smile that never even shifted…

Cloud couldn't breathe.

"Monsters have no pride. No dreams." Angeal raised an empty hand. The air over his palm snapped like jaws clacking together, and then lightning arced in glittering white gold spits. It grew, tumbling and twisting in his hand, until it was too bright to look at directly. "The most a monster could want, really, is to be human." His mouth twitched.

A few things happened then, right about at the same time.

The little—Genesis copy—girl rounded the corner, growling like a wolf. A grimace contorted her face into vicious lines, and she hurtled forward toward Cloud, arm outstretched with a tight, whirling core of fire starting to expand from within her clawed fingers. Angeal's head whipped around, eyes widening at the sight of the frothing girl. And the thunder spell jumped, sizzled loudly, and exploded outwards uncontrollably.

With tortured, ear-splitting squeals of metal, the panels warped under Cloud. He struggled to move, both to somehow crawl his way off of the bucking sheets and to twist away from the girl. Her hand was just an arm's length away from his throat.

And then, the panelling fragmented, dumping them down into thin air.

* * *

Numb.

A gentle, maddening itch skittered at the back of his throat. Smell? Irritation?

His ears gurgled like he was underwater, but he thought he heard...

"..."

It was getting louder.

"...fe."

Eyes. His eyes were closed. Or he was blind, but no, he thought he could feel them. Eyelids. Still kind of numb.

" _Strife!_ "

Cloud sucked in a quick gasp of air and immediately choked. Coughing, hacking, he rolled onto a side. His eyes were watering, and he blinked rapidly. There was a hand, solid pressure against his shoulder.

"Hold it. You should lie still."

His eyes and nostrils seemed to be dripping with leaky faucet vengeance, but he managed to rotate his head enough to look up blearily.

It was the General. He hovered over Cloud, frowning. His grip was vice tight on Cloud's shoulder, holding him still.

He didn't seem to want to let Cloud move.

Oh. Right.

Fall. Suspected spinal injury.

In a mildly concussed way, Cloud thought it was funny. After all the mindless drills and training, even the Firsts thought the same way as the grunts. Worked the same way. Probably had the same inane checklists running through their heads.

A grin tugged at his lips. Probably looked kind of loopy. But he shrugged the shoulder he could move, closed his fingers around Sepiroth's forearm, and levered himself up off the ground with brute force. Sitting up, he raised his hands. "I'm fine."

Sephiroth eyed him with blatant doubt. "You went through the plate, Strife."

Cloud looked up, reflexively, into a beam of light blinding in its brilliance. Cursing under his breath, he shielded his eyes, squinted, and tried again. There was a jagged hole in the roof, letting golden sunlight down into the big room. The wooden walls glowed, lending a sense of richness to the space. Dust was still twirling in the gap from the disturbance of his passage. Either that, or, since he'd landed in the slums, the dirt and pollution was a permanent fixture. Around him, sitting in a bed of blurry greens, whites, and yellows, splintered wood and shattered shingles lay in heaps. He blinked again, hard, and raised an arm to wipe at his streaming face. He tried to focus on the colours.

They were... some kind of flowers. He wasn't very familiar with flowers. Only the tiny blue and white ones grew up the Nibel mountain, huddling close to the ground for whatever warmth they could trap. These ones had big, dewy petals, practically luminescent in the shaft of light.

Tiny drops of red were beading on the some of them. Just a hint of a blood trail.

Cloud glanced back at Sephiroth, finally noticing the thin trickle of blood sliding down from a narrow scratch on the General's cheek. Quick enough to make his neck twinge, Cloud looked down at his arms. Shit. He looked like a pincushion with the amount of splinters that had lodged under his skin. The blood had smeared his skin pink.

"Uh," he tried. "Looks worse than it is?"

There was a flash of materia light, the kind of weird muted piercing that nothing natural could ever reproduce.

He recognized it. Libra.

Cloud squirmed under Sephiroth's scrutiny. Libra was one of the unpleasant ones. It always made him feel like his guts were getting turned inside out.

Presently, Sephiroth sat back on his heels and glanced around. "Perhaps the soil broke your fall sufficiently." He didn't sound very convinced.

"Uh. Yeah," Cloud agreed. He didn't say that he was still itching, or that it felt like a Cure slowed down to a crawl, tickling his skin with a feather-soft touch as the splinters inched themselves outward by hairs. He didn't say it was kind of creepy, the way the flowers seemed to turn, pivoting on their smooth stems to face them. A sliver of wood worked itself free and tumbled noiselessly to the earth. It hit his thigh on its way and made him jump, and then he was hastily brushing at his arms, splinters falling in a dull shower, trying, on some instinctive level, to hide the way they were removing themselves.

He'd gotten almost all of them when the gloved hand entered his peripheral vision.

Cloud looked up into the General's face. It almost hawk-like with the way his long hair cast long shadows in the direct light. Taking the hand—it was thinner than Angeal's—he stood.

Strangely enough, when they straightened, it was Sephiroth who swayed and had to take a quick step to catch his balance.

"Sir?"

A shake of the head. "It's nothing. The scent is a bit overwhelming."

The flowers?

Cloud glanced around again at the glowing petals as the General passed him. The heavy leather coat flapped thickly.

"Let's move out."

Nodding, Cloud followed.

They'd almost reached the wide double doors gleaming a deep varnished brown—it was a church; he'd heard of them before, the stained glass lining the walls and the rows of pews, but he'd never seen a real one before, even though this one was empty—when the left hand door swung open to hit the inside wall with a crash. The wood shuddered, sliding back gently. Tseng stood in the gap, outlined by daylight, shadowed face tighter and more frigid than Cloud had ever seen.

"What are you doing here?" Tseng said, a controlled snarl in his voice snapping at its constraints.

Cloud stared. Slowly, a frown crossing his face, he lifted a hand to point a thumb back the way they'd come, where light still streamed in slanted beams. "Didn't exactly get thrown off the plate by choice, Tseng," he said levelly.

Tseng swivelled, stepping back to the edge of the opening and leaving just enough room for a man to pass. "Get out," he said brusquely. "You shouldn't come back here."

"I wasn't going to," Cloud muttered.

Outside, sitting in one of the shafts of sunlight that had managed to wind its way into the very edge of the slums, a small lump lay, covered by one of the body bags he'd seen the Turks use. It wasn't zipped, probably because they hadn't gotten the corpse into it yet. At the very corner, where the bag couldn't quite cover, half of a small, white hand peeked out, resting on a couple of red curls.

Biting his lip hard, Cloud turned to follow Sephiroth's receding back.

* * *

**TBC**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More babble to follow, for anyone interested perhaps in the thought processes behind this fic. If not, ignore the rest of this text.
> 
> As you can see. Changes. I regret not having Cissnei there to give the angel commentary, but then again, I did think it was a bit over-the-top in-game to begin with. No worries, she'll be back to have her say.
> 
> Also, WTF? Zack falls from the plate and just bounces to his feet? And no one in ShinRa misses him enough to look for him while he's chumming it up with Aerith? Even busy with the Genesis invasion, that's a pretty big block of time to just lose track of one of the Firsts. I call BS. At least when Cloud made his nosedive, Tifa and Barret thought he was dead.
> 
> Finally, I've believed all along that the reason Cloud, believing himself to be Zack with Zack's memories, didn't recognize Aerith was because he constructed his memories largely from the stories that Zack told him in Hojo's lab. This means that Zack never told him about Aerith. Probably, it was to protect her. There was no way they weren't being monitored day and night. So, this point of divergence represents something that Zack lied to Cloud about. Another one will be the Modeoheim mission, because Cloud can't meet himself. His brain would explode, and then there'd be no more story.


	12. Meteor Man Blues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a while, he said, "Weird. I thought I'd be happier."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and settings are property of Square Enix. No profit is being sought from the writing of this fanfiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
> 
> Ugh, a bit late, but I've been working six days a week lately because of people on our team going off on vacation one after another. So instead of sleeping, I write Cloudfic. So, yeah, warning. Unbeta'd. Edited by the sleep deprived.
> 
> Right, so, about this chapter. It's an odd one. I don't know about you, but I'm kind of exhausted after the non-stop angst and violence. This was... for fun. I've honestly been looking forward to this part ever since I first plotted out this story. In any case, indulge me, please.

 

 

Part 11.  **Meteor Man Blues**

 

At about midmorning, the Soldier floor didn't get deserted, exactly. The men on duty had left for duty, the ones who weren't had gone and shacked up wherever they usually spent their time off, and so when Cloud stalked through the hall, soaked hair flat and still streaming uncomfortably down his neck, only a small cluster of Thirds and the guard at the meeting room door stilled in their tracks to watch with puzzlement until he passed.

He ignored them, his scowl pulling his face black. The bottle in his hand was still a bit slippery, so he tightened his grip.

Third last day of the rotation cycle, Kunsel got the morning off. Which meant he knew exactly where the son of a bitch would be.

He turned the corner sharply, and a couple of clumps of damp hair stuck themselves to his face. Underfoot, the tiles dipped down a few shallow steps to a sunken area of floor lined with battered couches, a wilted green thing in a pot struggling to lean towards the thin, watery light that filtered through the wall of tinted windows that made up the side of the building, and a black granite counter decked out with fancy ass coffee machines and the odd sticky stain. The Soldiers called it the Lounge.

Cloud thought of it as the gossip den, mostly because of the bastard reading a crackly newspaper on the couch closest to the windows.

"Huh," Kunsel said, peering intently at the type, as far as Cloud could tell through the opaque shell of his helmet. "Heidegger's secretary is screwing the President's nephew, twice removed or something." He flipped another page. "No mention of Wutai."

He'd probably been ready for it. Or at least waiting for something. Because when Cloud hurled the bottle he'd been clutching at the side of Kunsel's head, the Second jerked back immediately, yanking up his near arm to block. The plastic container ricocheted off his gauntlet and smashed to the floor with a crisp crack, spraying goopy shampoo over the tiles before it spun to a halt against another couch's legs. A faintly acrid scent wafted from the globs and puddles.

"You put  _bleach_  in my fucking shampoo," Cloud snapped, barely noticing the bewildered looks he was getting from the pair of Thirds trying to salvage some of the sludge ShinRa called coffee. "Did you think I wouldn't smell it, you ass?"

There was a snicker. "Thought your roots could do with a little touch up."

"I just get back from the shitlands, and this is what I get? No yo Cloud, how's it going Cloud, hey wow, you came in covered with blood, are you okay, Cloud? No, just blond jokes? You just..." He lifted his hand, the sticky one, and made a helpless clawing motion at the air, like he was grasping for words. And Kunsel was still  _grinning_. "You just gotta fuck with me right off the bat?"

"Sounds about right."

He was standing right beside the couch by then. Kunsel sat still, looking up at him with what could have passed as relaxed ease if it weren't for the tension in his pose, as if he was expecting Cloud to haul off and try to deck him.

Which he still might. He hadn't decided yet.

"Uh, sir, the Director was asking for you."

It took a few seconds for the words to register. Blinking, Cloud turned to look at the skinny MP shuffling his feet minutely as he stood facing him. He looked like he wanted to be there in the middle of the confrontation about as much as he wanted to stick his arm into a Zolom's mouth.

"Which one?" Cloud said, straightening and taking a step back. He'd probably failed miserably at keeping the suspicion out of his tone. He'd already come across Hojo in the halls earlier when he'd heard the scientist's voice, the man still out of sight ahead, asking some victim or other if he had any knowledge as to the whereabouts of that Soldier Cloud Strife in that imperious way he could identify halfway across the building. Cloud had made himself scarce just in case the lab needed to do any more field tests. It wasn't like Hojo was more than tangentially his boss. But that didn't mean he wasn't damn glad that no one had been around to see his duck and run.

"Um, Lazard, sir."

Oh.

Cloud made to head out of the Lounge before he paused and shot Kunsel another glare, jabbing a finger in front of the Second's face, where the man was barely suppressing a grin. "You watch your back, Kunsel," he said, as ominously as he could manage.

He'd already started walking away when Kunsel's voice, suddenly solemn, stopped him.

"Cloud."

When he glanced back, Kunsel nodded at him once, a sharp bob.

"Welcome home."

Cloud eyed the Second doubtfully. He'd hit the showers immediately after the most awkward train commute he'd ever taken, with the General silent and stiff as a board under the stares both covert and not so secretive, and him unable to sit down without getting blood all over everything. But since parts of the plate were still burning, and he wasn't in any actual danger of anything more severe than falling asleep on his feet, ShinRa hadn't been able to spare any military transports. One thing could be said about automated public transit. It ran like clockwork, even when the city was in chaos.

Given the timing, Kunsel had probably pulled his prank after he'd heard that Cloud was coming back from Wutai, but before the clones had started swarming Midgar. So there probably was an element of glad-you're-safe in the douchebaggery somewhere. A very small element.

Cloud rolled his eyes and flipped the guy off before he turned to follow the MP up the hall.

* * *

Cloud let himself match the MP's pace, even when the kid started slowing down involuntarily as he stared at practically everything he saw.

Cloud swallowed a snort. He'd had quarters down in the Regulars' barracks before. It was a ground level, box-like wing that showed every sign of being hastily tacked onto the ShinRa building after the company's military had started swelling. It wasn't as if the construction was particularly shoddy, just the utter lack of thought for, or care about, comfort in the design. Cloud could still remember the bleary-eyed mornings, rolling off his bunk to thump to the concrete floor at the blast of reveille after spending the night feeling every single strand of the spring netting digging into his back through the thin slab of a mattress and listening to all the guys tossing and turning around him.

The higher ups probably thought it built character or something. It certainly built something. The men still never wasted a single moment when they could catch a catnap, long after they'd been moved up the building.

Cloud looked around. The Soldier level had been converted from an office floor. It still looked like one, with the clean slate grey of the walls, edged with baseboards in gleaming chrome. On the left, sooty glass panes walled the materia facility and made indistinct moving blobs of the white coats inside.

Downstairs, the walls were painted the weird puke green that heavily populated areas tended to gravitate to. Possibly because it was better at hiding stains.

He'd thought maybe he'd look back on his time down there with some sense of twisted nostalgia. Yeah, wasn't happening. Cloud cleared his throat and watched the private jump before immediately picking up his pace.

"Did the Director mention what he wanted?" Cloud said, moving up to walk beside the MP.

"No, sir."

Cloud gave the kid a dry look. "What did he do, jump you while you were just passing by?"

"Er..."

Oh hell. "You didn't have to escort me, you know. I know my way here."

They were already there, anyway. The MP shrugged crookedly, turning to face Cloud as he stopped beside the frosted glass door to the outer reception area of Lazard's office. The guard standing on the other side ignored them. "I didn't mind. And he seemed okay with me leaving my post." He paused, and then he said, "Besides, the Corp said you were alright." He snapped a sharp salute, nodded to the guard, and trotted off around the corner before the memory of stinking black feathers and the smarmiest polite poker face he'd ever encountered hit Cloud.

"Alright?" he muttered, stepping through the door and hearing it whoosh shut behind him.

* * *

"Congratulations."

Cloud looked blankly down at the bundle of black fabric in his hands. It was crumpling a bit under his fingers, the neat lines of the folds falling out of alignment. It felt stiff, and kind of fat, in the way new fabric was that all the starch in the world couldn't replicate.

After a while, he said, "Weird. I thought I'd be happier."

Lazard gave a quiet laugh. "Well, you're a First now. How do you feel, if not happy?"

Cloud glanced up. Lazard looked exhausted, slouching forward in his seat and grey lines pulling at the sides of his eyes as he leaned the side of his chin on a hand. His desk was piled with dog-eared reports on one side, and a cluster of coffee mugs on the other. One of the mugs still had congealed black tar filling the bottom quarter of the container. He looked like he hadn't moved for days.

Cloud gnawed on the inside of a lip. "I don't know," he said, finally.

He'd thought there might be a bit more ceremony than a uniform thrust into his arms. He'd thought Angeal would be there beside him.

Another laugh. Lazard bent down to scribble something on a sheet of paper. "Well, technically, your promotion went through while you were away in Wutai a couple of days ago. The attack on Midgar kept us occupied, so we haven't been able to get you sorted out until now. You could conceivably say that you've been a Soldier First for a few days."

Cloud thought about this. "Does that mean I get retroactive pay?" On top of the salary bump, Firsts had a different pay grade for missions. It was one of the things Angeal had mentioned when Cloud had wondered out loud once why the First could spare him so much time.

This time, the laughter was silent, and probably more genuine, when it shook Lazard's shoulders as he finished whatever he was writing on the form. "Yes, Strife. But I'm quite aware that you don't do anything with your pay, anyway. What did you have in mind this time?" He sat up, extending the paper toward Cloud.

When he took the sheet, it was mostly on reflex. "I..." Cloud stopped. He wasn't sure yet. It was still kind of a vague— He looked at the form Lazard had handed him, and he froze. "What's this?"

"I'm also putting you on mandatory leave."

"What? Why?"

Lazard sat back into his seat, and the leather padding made a low sighing sound. "Strife, you've volunteered to be on standby for the last six months straight. I wouldn't have okayed it if we hadn't been so short-staffed lately." He tugged off his glasses and closed his eyes to rub a thumb over the bridge of his nose, and Cloud abruptly remembered that the man didn't have the mako enhancements to keep him going like Soldiers did. Lazard gave him a piercing look. "Have you started sleeping through the night, yet?"

Well, that killed any hint of sympathy that might have been festering. Cloud found himself settling into a mildly defensive stance, and he checked himself forcibly. He hadn't seen  _anyone_  out when he left his room at night. So how the  _hell—_

"Strife." Lazard pursed his lips, shook his head, and started again. "Cloud. Take the time off. Go do something you like. Aeronautics has been wondering what's happened to you since they haven't seen you for a while now."

Cloud didn't say anything at first, and then, stiffly, "How long is this mandatory leave?"

Lazard waved a couple of fingers. "Call it a week." He frowned suddenly. "No, actually, Professor Hojo was looking for you earlier."

Fuck.

"You're due for your final mako treatment that'll bring you up to First levels, and you'll need to recover after that. Two weeks, then."

Double fuck.

"Final treatment?" Cloud repeated.

He got a wry smile. "Yes. He's been prepping you for First Class since the Banora incident." Lazard looked puzzled for a moment. "What did you think it was for?"

Cloud blinked slowly. That night Hojo had sent his goons _—_ well, not really _—_ after him. "I hadn't thought about it," he admitted. He'd been too busy getting strapped to a chair and trying to keep something of a lid on the hysteria.

Lazard smiled again. "He wants you in his lab by seventeen hundred hours at the end of the week. Don't be late."

Cloud nodded. This was going to be the worst vacation ever.

"Talk to my secretary about mission pay."

"Right." That sounded like a dismissal. "Thanks, sir." He turned to the door.

"And try not to give ground control an apoplexy this time."

Cloud spun around, but Lazard had already buried himself back into his paperwork.

* * *

It was the longest week of Cloud's life.

Maybe even longer than that week he spent digging holes in the dirt with his toe—he got a few stinging slaps to the back of his head for that—just  _waiting_  for the grocer to take his weekly trip down to the next town, from which he could catch a longer bus to the port near Costa del Sol, where the ShinRa recruitment party stopped a couple of weeks every year. Then, at least, he had something to fixate on.

He didn't know what to do.

Normally, on the couple of days off they got between rotations, however long ago that had been, he'd take the bike. It was a loaner from Evans, who had been on his squad and ran on the same schedule. Evans had always been working on one ride or another. They'd take to the empty roads around Midgar, where the plains seemed to be laced with deserted paths that petered out into patches of churned earth halfway to nowhere, like the builders had changed their minds about the destination. That, or there had been something at the ends before. Just not any more, not after the land started dying.

He and Evans would just ride. Race the Levikrons and their terrified squawks.

Then, he'd show Evans, the eternal city boy, how to catch something to eat.

He couldn't seem to stop thinking about the people who weren't there, during the forced inactivity of aimless days. He hated it. They'd probably tell him that he'd been, was, running away, or something. Sounded pretty fucking good to him.

So he'd taken Lazard's advice, and went to the aerodrome. There, the guys had taken one look at Cloud, commented on their surprise over his not having died yet, and put him to work. Some of the machines had been damaged during the Genesis copy attack, and so they had plenty of odd jobs for a gofer.

His new uniform stayed folded, shoved onto a shelf in his closet.

The company was still sending Soldiers out with the Regulars into the city. Mostly cleanup, he'd heard. Some rebuilding. The Soldiers were there to move the heavy shit, and in case they came across some of the monsters who'd taken the destruction and debris as a sign to expand their territories, and in Midgar,  _everything_  had been exposed to mako at some point, in some form. The monsters had gotten stronger over time. Not enough to pose a threat to a Soldier, but just enough to seriously harm someone unenhanced who'd been caught off guard.

For bigger projects, bigger groups, Sephiroth would go, taking a couple of Thirds with him.

Cloud hadn't seen the General since they'd parted ways upon reaching the ShinRa building. The man had paused at the entrance, glanced at Cloud, and told him that Angeal had been spotted flying away. He hadn't said anything else. Cloud wouldn't have known how to respond, anyway.

The first time, Sephiroth hadn't seemed to be expecting to see him at the airbase. The engineers had let Cloud cruise the chopper over to the pad, and when he hopped down out of the cockpit, grease ground across half of his jaw and down the front of the borrowed overalls, he'd come face to face with the General. Sephiroth had actually looked taken aback for a moment as Cloud had hastily tried to wipe at least some of the black grime away before tossing a sloppy salute.

The second time, Sephiroth had just nodded to him before climbing up.

The fourth day, Cloud went to the garage instead. It was almost like going home.

Unlike the slightly acidic stench of mako that always lingered in the air around the airships, the ground vehicles smelled of nothing but oil and earth. It helped that the mechanics were younger, too, and trusted Cloud to know his way around an engine well enough that they didn't hover over his shoulder and breathe down his neck while he worked. And, when he got right down to it, the airships tended towards the practical. Impersonal. These machines, though, they were beautiful.

Cloud ran the cloth over the smooth flank of a motorcycle that belonged to some Turk he didn't know again, bending over to eye the gleam of floodlights over black metal. Asshole had gone and put a dent into the casing, but once Cloud had finished with her, she looked like she'd never even been touched before.

"Cloud, dude, if you're going to fondle them that much, why don't you just buy your own after all these years?"

Cloud straightened up to see one of the two mechanics on duty grinning at him. His name was Jamie Fonte. He was nineteen years old, came from Rocket Town, had an old ma back home that he was going to set up right with the wads of ShinRa cash he was going to make as he climbed the ranks, and he'd seen down the front of Scarlet's dress once. He'd told all of it to Cloud in one breath the first time they'd met.

"Hell no," Cloud said, stepping away from the vehicle and wiping a hand down the side of his leg. He ignored the smear he left. "I'm going to build one someday, and you'll be begging to touch it."

"That's not what you said last night."

"Oh ha the fuck ha. Want me to wipe those ones down while I'm at it?" He jerked his chin towards the couple of sports cars and other personal vehicles that weren't clogging up the garage's backlog of repairs.

Jamie shrugged. "Sure, go for it. Just don't touch the General's bike."

Cloud felt his mouth fall open. "The General keeps his bike here?"

"Yeah." The grin widened. "That one." Jamie followed him over, and Cloud saw the patient beam on the guy's face as he circled the motorcycle slowly. "She's a beast, right? He doesn't use her much anymore. But man, you should have seen his face that time Dave was painting, and the door was open, and then there was this gust of wind... Oh fuck, it splattered everywhere." The mechanic paused to cringe. "We had to redo the whole finish."

"Shit," Cloud breathed. "Was he pissed?"

"He didn't even say anything. There was just this  _look_."

There was heartfelt groan from across the work area, where the aforementioned Dave was hidden under the bed of a jacked up truck, and Cloud met Jamie's eyes. He wasn't sure which one of them cracked up first.

There was an elevator that serviced the level of the garage they were occupying, as well as some more subterranean parking, before emptying out into the first floor lobby. The parking office was on their level, too, and since it was barely half a flight into the plate, most people tended to just take the stairs that flanked the lift doors. They had to sign out through the office, anyway.

When the orange-painted door to the stairs swung open and Sephiroth stepped into the garage in full battle gear, Cloud snapped his mouth shut with a click.

The General seemed to change his mind halfway to the parking office, and he came up to Cloud instead. "Strife."

Cloud blinked. "Sir. Was there something..."

"Just requisitioning a vehicle." Sephiroth gestured with a gloved hand, and the Masamune clinked as it shifted at his side. "The Chocobo ranch has reported a rise in monster activity, and the owner has requested immediate aid."

"A hunt?" Cloud said, ignoring the quiet snigger at his back at the way he perked up. "Can I—"

"And Lazard has apprised me of your situation," Sephiroth interrupted, something that almost looked like a smirk on his face. "You may not come."

Dammit.

Sephiroth nodded at Jamie over his shoulder. "What do you have available?"

The mechanic hummed for a second as he dug out a keychain that looked like it weighed more than his head. Picking a set of keys out, he twisted the magnetic snap free, and tossed it to Cloud. The metal jingled as he handed them in turn to the General.

"You'll put it under my name?" Sephiroth said over his shoulder as he walked away.

"You betcha, sir," Jamie called back.

Watching the General's back, Cloud's eyebrows gradually furrowed. The hell was that? Did the man just want to rub it in?

"Oh, and Strife." Cloud snapped to attention almost involuntarily when Sephiroth spoke again. "Carry on with your vacation."

Okay, now he was  _sure_.

He was gaping. He could feel it. Maybe this was what Angeal had been complaining about that one time he'd ever caught the First grumbling about something. Cloud had thought he'd heard the General's name in there somewhere, but Angeal had completely clammed up when he'd noticed Cloud staring.

The bastard Jamie just chortled.

They waited until the General had actually driven away—he  _did_  drive like an asshole, if the way he cut off the minor executive trying to get into the garage was any indication—before Jamie nudged him with an elbow.

"Hey, why's he going on a hunt personally? Don't you Soldier people have other stuff to do?"

Cloud frowned. "I don't know. He's been going out on a lot of missions lately."

"You think maybe he just doesn't want to be here?"

Cloud shrugged. As a First, Sephiroth was now his most direct superior. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. Angeal had been kind of sadistic on occasion, too, but Sephiroth was  _weird_. Cloud let out a sharp sigh. And he really was going to have to stop comparing them. That couldn't be healthy.

When he reached over the hood of the car he'd been working on and picked up the water bottle he used on the occasion that he was at HQ (it was bright yellow and said "Hot Fuzz" in huge block letters; Travers had bought it for him randomly while on duty in Junon and had snickered while presenting it to Cloud) it made a pathetic gurgling swish. He made a face.

Draining the rest of the lukewarm water, he straightened his back and stretched.

"I'm going on a drink run. You guys want anything?"

"I'm good, thanks," Dave said absently.

"Cherry cola for me."

Cloud gave Jamie a look as he passed. "Seriously?"

"Hey, do not hate on the cola. The cola hates you!" The last was nearly a yell, following him through the stairwell door as it swung shut behind him, and Cloud laughed under his breath.

* * *

It had been getting warm again as the days got longer. The soda can was sweating in his hand as Cloud walked, and he'd barely moved a floor or two away from the vending machine. He heard the clack of expensive shoes on the tile before he saw anything, and when Lazard rounded the corner, looking more harried than he'd been in the middle of a firefight, he pulled himself to a stop.

The Director paused, looked up, and approached when he saw Cloud. He was tugging on the collar of his suit in an attempt to straighten out a twist in his tie.

"Strife, have you seen Sephiroth?"

Cloud blinked. "He headed down to the chocobo ranch on mission."

Lazard's scowl deepened. "We have the new group of recruits heading into orientation. He wasn't supposed to leave base."

It was that time of the year, wasn't it? Cloud was privately certain that the company timed it so that when the poor bastards arrived, eager as penny whores, they experienced every bit of the shit that early summer Midgar dumped down on their heads during infantry training. Buckets of rain, slime in the puddles, and things that stung everything and anything they could get their needle-sharp mouths into.

And he remembered the expressionless mask on Sephiroth's face on that stage during his own first day, when it was all he could do to try not to stare.

"Strife."

Cloud looked up to see Lazard eyeing him. The Director had given up, and was simply yanking his tie out now.

"I hate to ask you this, during your free time, but would you attend the ceremony in Sephiroth's place?"

Slowly, Cloud let his face fall blank, shut down. His arms felt like numb blocks at his sides, though the chilled sides of the drink can still sent an aching cold into his palm.

For a while there, he'd felt— He'd been... normal.

Sort of. However normal he could be when everything gleamed green when he shut off the lights. When he couldn't touch anything in his apartment without remembering why it was there.

But for a while, it had been good. There were still people, even if it was because they were civilians, who looked at him, smiled, said stupid shit, and didn't see the blood on his hands. Didn't want anything from him except maybe for that fucking cherry cola.

And now. Again. Just like that parade, after Fort Tamblin. When they wanted him to replace Angeal.

And the worst part, the part he  _hated_  the most, was how they acted like it didn't matter who it was. As long as a body was there.

"You wouldn't have any further duties during the ceremony," Lazard continued. He'd probably misinterpreted Cloud's expression. "It would be sufficient if you simply made an appearance while Sephiroth is... away."

"Why?" Cloud said quietly.

"Why is it sufficient?"

"Why is Sephiroth—" Cloud stopped, waving a jerky hand when he couldn't figure out what he was going to say.

Lazard exhaled long and low. "I don't know." He'd pulled the tie straight between his hands, and then he looped its length around the back of his neck. "I suppose, perhaps, last year, all three Firsts attended the orientation."

"How does he get away with it?"

Lazard's mouth curved into a tired smile that didn't touch his eyes. "He's been part of ShinRa for longer than I can remember. Sometimes, I'm not sure if Sephiroth has ever known how to be anything else."

It was more than anyone in a position to know the details had ever said about the General before. But still, he wasn't— Cloud frowned. They'd talked about him, though. Jamie, Travers. Jordon with his quiet respect. The other people who drank gossip like it was wine. They really had talked about him a lot. But it was... It was as if no one actually liked Sephiroth. Except for Angeal and Genesis.

"Be at the auditorium within twenty minutes." Lazard's voice suddenly sounded loud and jarring. The Director eyed the grease patches and the long tear up the side on Cloud's faded jeans. "Come in uniform."

* * *

His purples had moulded to his body over the last couple of years. Thick as the fabric was, it had still gotten a bit threadbare over the knees. Down the legs, where the pants tucked into his boots, the seams had been starting to fray. The threads had separated out into strands of deep blue mixed in with the violet.

The black scraped against his kneecaps as he walked. It felt stiff. Heavy. Nothing mixed in with the black; it was solid.

Cloud moved down the middle of the hallway, acutely aware of every little clink his Soldier belt made as he took a step. He nodded in greeting when a Third he didn't recognize stopped to salute. He didn't think he'd ever felt so self-conscious over a uniform before. When he'd made Second, Travers had been there. Already in purple, completely condescending, but just... there.

Now, fuck, he was heading alone towards a theatre full of gawking hopefuls.

As he passed the materia facility, the shaded glass door swooshed open, and Robertsson stepped out into the hallway. The Second stopped when he saw Cloud.

Then, he smiled, one side of his mouth coming up higher than the other, and he started down the corridor toward Cloud, close arm coming up and hand closing into a ball as Cloud did the same.

They stepped past each other, and Robertsson thumped the side of his gloved fist into Cloud's before he headed down the way Cloud had come.

* * *

Forenz was on guard detail at the doors to the auditorium, as heavy-set and imposing as the entryway behind him. Spine already ramrod straight, the Third didn't react as Cloud approached. Then, he saluted sharply when Cloud drew level, and he held it, even when Cloud stopped, a hand on the push bar to the door, and let his head droop down on his neck to just breathe.

Cloud exhaled loudly, resisting the urge to press his free hand over where his heart was jackhammering into his throat. He opened eyes he hadn't realized had drifted shut, and he looked up into the mottled grain of the wood in front of his face. He focussed on the big dark knothole under the varnish, just beneath eye level. Tracing the whorls, he blinked rapidly.

Then he sighed again, and tilted his head to grin crookedly at Forenz. "Well," he said, "sideshow freak's a go."

Though the Third didn't move, didn't even drop the hand he still had at his polished helmet level, it was gratifying to see the little quirk to his mouth.

"Wish me luck." Quietly.

"Yes sir." Equally quiet.

* * *

Whatever Lazard was saying at the podium, Cloud heard none of it. He hadn't even heard it the first time, when he'd been on the other side of the stage, his stomach had tied itself in knots, and he couldn't open his mouth for fear of vomiting out the butterflies. Now, he scanned the room, eyes skipping from one spot to the next, never resting for too long in one place. It could have been habit. Something built up over time as any big enough structure could potentially be hiding an enemy. It could have been leftover from the war, from the way the uniform chafed and set him on edge. But really, somewhere down in the cold pit in his gut, he knew it was because of the people sitting in the audience.

There weren't as many. Not that he'd really been keeping track over the past couple of years as the war progressed, but he did still remember the throng around him when he'd come through that door. Maybe it was some kind of protest against what ShinRa was doing. Maybe it was because they were running out of kids, but there weren't that many recruits. Barely half the seats were filled.

The chairs on the stage had come from the conference room on the second floor. They weren't hard to recognize, between the lurid orange padding, the distressing smell a couple of the backrests were starting to develop, and the way some lump of fabric seemed to dig into his ass no matter how he sat. Not that he was squirming, really. He probably wasn't allowed.

They were trying not to—he could tell; he was pretty damn familiar with that skittering gaze—but their eyes kept turning back to Cloud, to his belt, his face, like he'd suddenly turned into magnetic north. They'd glance at him, snap back to trying to pay attention to whatever rousing speech Lazard was giving in welcome since the President couldn't be bothered to show up anymore, and then their eyes would make that inexorable slide toward him.

Some things really never changed.

It started small, but the smile crept over his face, and he let himself stop moving. The next time one of the kids' stares shifted back to him, he made eye contact.

* * *

"Have a seat."

Cloud eyed the chair warily. It looked the same, so far as he could remember. It was a bit of a blur, that last time he'd been here, somewhere between not sleeping and waking up in the infirmary. There didn't seem to be any straps this time. Unless they were detachable or something.

His scalp was prickling from the eyes boring into the back of his head, and he twisted his head over a hunched shoulder to see Hojo just standing there, giving him an unimpressed look. Clearing his throat weakly, Cloud climbed up into the seat. It was the way it reclined, so that he had to shove himself into the very bottom of the dip before he could swing his legs up. The shift in weight made him slide even further down. Then, he had to lean back. And lean back even more when there wasn't any contact with the headrest. A flash of panic seized his throat when he still felt nothing under him.

Hojo's fingers were cold and surprisingly strong when they closed over his shoulder and pushed him into the backrest.

The scientist clicked his tongue as he let go and turned to the high table next to the chair. Cloud couldn't see anything, but there were a few shuffling sounds.

"The furniture will not eat you, Strife," Hojo said with his back turned.

Cloud jumped, and he managed a faint laugh. "Yeah, I—Just. Yeah, sorry."

Hojo ignored him. He'd half swivelled, so that he was leaning an elbow on the table as he flipped through a chart on a clipboard. He hummed softly. "Fascinating. Some of the best mako responses of the secondaries. It's a pity about the J cell lash-back."

"What?" Cloud said, face crinkled in confusion. It was like the professor was in a sharing mood or something. And it was fucking weird.

Hojo set the clipboard down. When he spoke, it was almost absently while he pressed Cloud's arm firmly down into the soft groove in the chair's armrest. "A treatment I was forced to abandon due to your adverse reaction. Not unlike what was utilized for the first generation of Firsts."

"What, that thing in the VR room?"

Another hum while a couple of bony fingers thumped the inside of his elbow.

"I thought you said that was some kind of field test."

"No, it was tailored for you."

"What?" _What?_ "I nearly  _died_ ," Cloud muttered, sinking lower in the seat.

"Stay still." More shuffling. "And I'm quite aware, Strife, thank you. Who do you think reversed the damage when I had the Hewley boy bring you to my lab?"

"Your lab?" Cloud shifted. He hadn't exactly been awake for that part. Then again, he'd never asked for details. He'd just kind of assumed that Hojo had left—

There was a rasp of a sigh. Cloud glanced up. Maybe it was the brightness. The hint of daylight that seeped in from the corridors outside, and the murmur of the couple of techs trying to find something in a cupboard by emptying the entire thing out onto the counter a few feet away. It was easier to breathe this time. Then again, the professor really wasn't acting anything like he remembered. Those bags were still there, under the thick glasses. But he didn't think the scientist had actually looked directly at him before. He tried not to shrink under the sharp stare.

"I'm well aware of my reputation amongst the Soldiers, Strife. It's served me well at times." Cloud's eyes widened when Hojo picked up a length of thin piping that fed into a capped needle as long as his index finger. "But now, you're one of  _my_  Firsts, and that means we will necessarily be working closely together." The other end of the pipe fed into the box of bleeping lights sitting on a metal trolley that pulled down out of the ceiling behind the chair back. If he tilted his head back far enough, he could see the green digital readout blinking "ready."

Cloud smothered the wince. "So there'll be more shots?"

There was a low bark of laughter. "Yes, Strife." The swab that swiped over his skin left a prickling feeling as the rubbing alcohol evaporated. "After all,  _my_  specimens aren't degrading."

Cloud shot a covert look at the nasty smile on the professor's face before turning away again. He got a sharp flick to his elbow in response.

"Stop that. The more you tense, the more painful the procedure will be."

"You sure didn't seem concerned about that last time I was in." Fuck. He really had to do something about that problem he had, where he opened his mouth and a stinking mound of shit came out without him thinking about it.

"You made me wait three hours for you," Hojo said, dry and whip quick.

Cloud didn't have anything to say to that. Keeping his arm as still as he could manage, he craned his neck to peer around the room so that he wouldn't have to watch the needle slot home under his skin. It pinched. Kind of cold.

More prodding. "Does this hurt?" He could see more of what was on the table now. White fluorescent lighting gleamed off a neat row of bottles, and a tray of glass vials sat on the side, his name inscribed in black chicken scratch along the horizontal labels.

"Um, not really. Kind of weirdly tingly—"

"The succinct version, please," Hojo snapped.

Cloud subsided. "No, sir."

"Good." Hojo twisted a latch, and acid burning flooded through Cloud, racing up his arm, to his chest, and spreading in a percussive drive that made him slam his head back into the padded headrest behind him, hissing viciously through clenched teeth as his pulse hammered in his ears, suddenly deafeningly loud—

"And we're done." Hojo slid the needle back out from under his skin briskly, the other hand coming up with a cotton plug that he pressed over the puncture hole. "Put pressure here."

When Cloud reached for the white wad, the scientist pivoted away to pull a plastic tray closer on the counter. Bottles clinked as they slid into neat rows of small compartments as he continued talking.

"Your muscle control won't be at par for the time being. If you can manage to be quiet while I deal with the final bit of my work tonight, you can stay here and sleep it off." Hojo turned, a small syringe Cloud hadn't even seen him draw out in his hand. This one went briskly into his shoulder, just under where the sleeve of his faded blue t-shirt had bunched up as he'd fidgeted, and it stung like a bitch when the plunger went down.

"Ow!"

"This will help you sleep and speed your recovery."

"What if I didn't want the second shot?" Cloud said, maybe a bit belligerently.

"Stop whining, boy." The professor had moved over to the techs, who'd slunk back away from the cluttered desk when they saw him approaching. "This way, you can sleep without the nightmares for once."

Cloud's mouth dried. "How did you—" His voice cracked halfway through a word.

Hojo didn't seem to be listening anymore, anyway. Not with the way he was muttering to himself and stabbing at whatever he had clipped to a folder with a pen. Then he snapped the file closed when the door opened, and he walked, dragging the soles of his shoes the entire way like he couldn't be bothered to raise his feet, over to meet the man who'd stepped through the entry way.

"General Sephiroth?"

Hojo whirled around to glare, his mouth in a thin line, and Cloud clapped his jaw shut.

* * *

He'd found his way to a little side office eventually, after he'd managed to roll himself out of the tilted chair. That had been more because one of the technicians had noticed him fumbling with the couple of switches he'd found near the bottom of the seat and come over to lift up one of the armrests for him with a barely smothered grin than anything he'd actually done. In the side office, there was a couch upholstered with some kind of ribbed fabric, and another reclining chair. Cloud had gone for the couch.

He felt heavy, like it had been lead that Hojo had poured into his veins and not mako. The door was open, so he could sort of see movement out in the main lab space. Could. Didn't really. Partially because his eyelids seemed to be turning into jelly and just continuously sliding shut so he had to focus hard. Mostly because he was staring at his hands with all the concentration he could summon. If he didn't, his fingers felt like they were swelling up like sausages and ready to pop in peel-y explosions of gore. His tongue, too. But if he looked, they were still normal. Blurry. But normal-sized.

That was why he inhaled sharply, flinching and jerking his head up from where he was slouching forward in his seat when heavy footsteps thumped into the little room he was occupying. He blinked rapidly, looking up as Sephiroth slung his coat onto the back of the other recliner and yanked a loose black sweater over his head with the most openly pissed look he'd ever seen on the man's face. He hadn't even heard the other First coming.

Sephiroth turned his head to look at Cloud while he was pulling his hair out of the neck hole. "What is it?"

He was staring, wasn't he? He opened his mouth. "What?" Cloud said. Well, in running for prize for most intelligent response right there.

Well, the General seemed satisfied anyway. He turned to pull himself into the leaning chair with an abortive nod. "Hojo gave you the knock out serum."

"Oh. Yeah. You?" His face felt numb. It was hard to make his mouth form the words. He opened his jaw wide for a moment to try to stretch his cheeks out, but it turned into a yawn, so he slapped a palm over his face.

"No."

Cloud looked at his hands again, just to make sure. "Didn't have a chance to refuse it or anything," he mumbled.

"Just sleep, Strife. It'll get better."

Cloud blinked again, feeling his forehead crinkle. "Sir? You're staying?"

"Yes." Sephiroth tilted his head on the seat, saw Cloud watching, and continued. "Hojo's gone, and I have no further duties this evening."

"Oh." Cloud frowned, and he scanned the small room. There wasn't anything in it but the couch and the seat. There wasn't even a light. At some point, someone had shut off the lights out in the main lab, but there was still a bit coming through the glass panels looking out into the corridor. It was dim, though, washing everything out in a fuzz of grey. "Do you want the couch?"

"No, Strife."

He could tell when the General looked at him through slitted eyes because of the mako-coloured gleam in the muted shadows. Shit. He was glowing, too, wasn't he?

"You sure? Because I think it's probably—"

"Strife," Sephiroth interrupted, sitting up abruptly. "I know you're normally expected to stay alert in the presence of officers, but in this situation, it's not necessary to stick to protocol. If you find it that difficult to relax, I can leave."

Cloud stared. What? He felt his mouth work, but nothing came out.

"It's not that," he managed, a rapid croak when the General seemed like he was about to heave himself up out of his seat. "I mean. Sure, training, but you know, I was always alone a lot when I was a kid. Before I came here, I mean. But then I did come here."

"Right," Sephiroth said slowly, sounding puzzled.

And Cloud pushed ahead, even if he wasn't really sure what he was— Because the General had just assumed that Cloud didn't actually want to talk to him. "Because, you know, not a lot in the jungle. Frogs, mostly, and—"

"Jungle?"

"Yeah," Cloud blinked, gesturing vaguely with a hand. "A lot of nothing but jungle in Gongaga."

Sephiroth was eyeing him. "Your file says you're from up north."

Cloud was staring again. "You read my file?"

"Of course. Angeal submitted a full report with the recommendation for Soldier First."

"Oh." Cloud leaned back slowly. "Yeah. Nibelheim." He did sound kind of delirious, didn't he. He ran his palm absently over the prickly fabric over the cushions under him. "Angeal would have wanted the couch," he said, mostly to himself.

There was a short, soft sound that could have been agreement, and Cloud snapped his head back up.

Sephiroth had lain back at some point, and wasn't looking at him anymore. "Angeal and Genesis were with Hollander, not Hojo."

"Oh," Cloud said again. He thought for a while. "So wait, you weren't—"

"Strife," Sephiroth interrupted again, and this time his voice could have cut glass. "We can speak later. I'm sure Hojo told you to sleep, since the efficacy of the mako treatment depends on the restructuring that takes place when you're asleep.  _I_  would like to sleep."

Cloud shut his mouth again. Then, quietly, he said, "Do what I'm told. Got it." The "last time" went unspoken.

There was silence again. The heavy, stiff kind.

"I apologize for what I said." The words clicked into place with deliberation. "Now, and in the reactor."

Oh. Cloud didn't— Fuck. He couldn't—

The lack of sound was almost a physical thing, spongy and dark, pouring its way down into his ears so that there wasn't even any space for air. The only way he could tell that he was breathing was through the pressure on his nostrils.

He didn't think he'd ever miss that fucking loud clock in his apartment until he so completely didn't hear it.

After a while—forever—there was a soft rustle, and the recliner made a groaning noise as it settled. "Don't worry, Strife. Hojo may not be the most accommodating of men, but he takes pride in his work. Sleep."

Sephiroth fell silent.

Finally, Cloud sucked in a long breath. It rasped in his throat. "Hey, sir? My buddies call me Cloud."

There was no answer.

Cloud winced. "Sorry, sir. Didn't mean to—"

He glanced over at the other seat, but Sephiroth was already asleep. The lines on his forehead were still there, making it look like he was frowning.

* * *

Two days later, Cloud was back in the black uniform. Lazard hadn't exactly cancelled the rest of his leave, even if he was  _fine_ , just a bit sore on the bone level, but Colonel Karrida had caught him again. He'd asked Cloud to sit in on a training session—he ought to remember it; Angeal had been running it for two years now—and when he'd found out about the restrictions on Cloud, he'd gone off somewhere. Lazard had sounded resigned when he called later to order Cloud over to field five.

It wasn't as if the Director didn't outrank Colonel Karrida, but the Colonel was career military. He'd been with ShinRa since before Cloud had even realized there was another continent out there. Maybe before Lazard had, too.

Cloud had heard that the Colonel had been on the Soldier track too, at some point. He hadn't made it, but he'd ended up overseeing the recruits for over thirty years. By the time Cloud had gone through, Karrida had already been slowly handing off his duties to other officers. He still had an office down in the infantry levels of the building, and he still had skin about the same texture of a walnut's shell from the time he'd spent in the field, but, well... there were stories.

The Colonel hadn't personally handled drills for at least ten years. But now, since the mass desertion, ShinRa had been scrambling a bit to come up with personnel. It was SICor training that he'd brought Cloud out for, a newer program that fed directly into Soldier. Since it was advanced training, it pulled people from all kinds of backgrounds, from Security to officer school. Cloud remembered being the youngest of the bunch, one of the group of most diverse trainees that ShinRa had gotten.

It also had this guy, who was placed right near the front of their formation. He looked a couple of years older than Cloud, was about a head taller, and was built like a fucking tank. Karrida had called him Ryerson, and he was from Naval.

It wasn't that hard for Cloud to figure out that Ryerson was the reason Colonel Karrida had dragged him out here. They were doing block drills with their training swords that had been beaten into lumps of blunt trash over the years when Cloud got to the field, and the guy was showing off.

Following the Colonel's scowl, Cloud turned to watch Ryerson disarm his partner, tap the tip of his trainer sword over the other man's chest, and back away with a lazy flourish. Cloud waited while the pair went through a couple more rounds, all with the same result, his forehead slowly creasing as he looked on. When Ryerson moved to let the other trainee up again, Cloud inserted himself between the two.

"Why aren't you setting yourself properly?" he asked.

Ryerson's eyes flickered rapidly between his face and his uniform. "Sir?"

"Sink lower into your stance." Cloud pointed at the man's feet.

Ryerson's mouth tightened. "With respect, sir, this style focuses on offense over defense. It was developed by—"

"I don't care if you learned it from the General himself," Cloud said bluntly. "You're off balance."

The silence was mulish. The other trainees had stopped to watch them by now.

"Look," Cloud said, "fine. Show me."

There was a moment of hesitation, and then the guy lunged. Cloud stepped in, snapping an elbow into Ryerson's wrist at the same time as he locked a knee against the side of the man's leg and swung around. Ryerson managed to hang onto his sword, but he pitched backward and went down hard.

Cloud shrugged a shoulder, standing over the man. "See? You're not going to get anywhere with fancy blade work if you don't have the basics. With our size difference, I shouldn't have been able to budge you with that." Ryerson had climbed back to his feet by then, and Cloud reached out a hand. "Give me that." As he headed back towards the Colonel, the battered training sword in his grip, he twisted enough to look back. "Run footwork drills for the rest of the day."

The look he got was almost blatantly mutinous, but Ryerson shuffled into place.

"Forward. Back." Cloud tilted his chin, swinging the practice sword absently in his hand. "Check your feet."

The guy made a face like he'd bit into something sour, but he corrected properly, and he started again.

Cloud snorted softly. "He's gonna be really good," he said quietly.

Karrida smiled tiredly beside him. "I appreciate you coming out here, Strife." A hand came up to his shoulder, and when it tightened, just for a second, like the Colonel was catching himself, Cloud looked sharply at the old man. The smile was still there, but then the Colonel shrugged almost imperceptibly. "It's been a bit... I'm just not as young as I used to be." The last was accompanied by a brittle laugh.

Cloud didn't let his face change at all. He nodded, making damn sure it looked politely honest, despite the bloodshot eyes and the hint of liquor he could smell under the waves of mint on the Colonel's breath, this close. And it wasn't just because this man could have, probably should have, kicked him out of the company a couple of times. It was because of people like—

There was a burst of loud laughter. "It's good to have young blood, yeah? Quite a difference, the results that can be achieved when we don't send out washed up old men to do the job."

People like that. Cloud was still looking at Colonel Karrida, so he caught the tiny flicker that crossed the old man's face. The smile hadn't dropped for a second, though, even if it had gone a little wooden, when the Colonel turned to face the speaker, nodding as if in agreement.

Cloud turned, too.

Because there were people like Heidegger, who everyone  _knew_  would say something nasty about useless old men losing their grip on reality but trading it off for a good grip on a bottle's neck. All the while grinning in that way. Sharks probably looked friendlier. Cloud had seen him in his periphery when he'd stopped to watch sometime while Ryerson had been trying to defend his stance.

"The boy's shaping up to be a right little Angeal, isn't he?" Heidegger said loudly, his eyes narrowed as he addressed the Colonel. "You'll be out of a job soon, eh, Karrida?"

Cloud glanced at the man standing at Heidegger's side, face blank and arms crossed. The General had been walking with the Director of Public Safety, and so when Heidegger had stopped, Sephiroth had been forced to come to a halt beside him. His jaw rippled, like he was clenching his teeth tightly.

Karrida chuckled amiably again. Cloud wondered if the Colonel realized that his fingers were digging into his shoulder.

Probably everyone in the company knew that Heidegger had been trying to force the Colonel out for years now. They figured that it had something to do with the influence Karrida still wielded, even if it wasn't anything formal. The reason Heidegger hadn't succeeded was that people liked the Colonel. Rufus  _Shinra_  liked the Colonel. But that didn't stop the open verbal digs, because Heidegger knew Karrida wouldn't ever say anything about it.

Cloud cleared his throat. "The sentiment is deeply appreciated, sir, but I aim to excel in my own way, and not to replace Angeal. Or anyone else."

Heidegger's eyes had shot to Cloud when he'd started speaking. In the silence that followed, Cloud stood to sharp attention, focussing steadily on a point just past the Director's beard, close enough that he could see the hard and black stare. Behind him, the General was watching Cloud, too.

He hadn't ever spoken to Heidegger before. Angeal had always done that, and Heidegger had always just ignored Cloud. And now the first thing he'd done was mouth off.

Fuck, he was in such deep shit.

"Hmph," Heidegger grunted. He eyed Cloud for another long moment, and then he turned and paced away, down the dirt path that edged the field.

When the Colonel's hand finally dropped from Cloud's shoulder, he had a strange mixed look on his face. Some amusement, combined with something unreadable. He shook his head lightly, and then he turned back towards the trainees, shouting at them to get their asses moving. As the others scuttled back into formation, Cloud saw Ryerson pause for a little longer. Then, the guy tilted his head up, and his mouth thinned and tilted in a weird, half side up, half side down way that Cloud gradually realized was probably a smile of some kind. He got into position and sank down into his ready stance, glancing down at his boots once or twice.

Cloud figured that this meant he could take off and find some way to hide from the Director for the rest of his life. But Sephiroth hadn't moved at all.

He wasn't looking at Cloud, at least. Cloud hesitated for a second, gnawing on the inside of his cheek at the stony look on the General's face. Maybe he hadn't liked that Angeal comment any more than Cloud did. Or maybe he was still pissed at Cloud for being incapable of shutting up when he really should have.

Cloud dragged his hand through his hair, and he took a deep breath. "By your leave, sir."

Sephiroth nodded tightly, and Cloud started down the path, carefully opposite to the direction Heidegger had taken.

"Cloud." The General's voice stopped him. When he twisted around, the other First gave him that same odd little half nod he'd seen down in Hojo's lab. "My friends call me Sephiroth."

Cloud's eyes widened slowly. Then he grinned, and he threw a loose salute.

* * *

"Seriously?" Cloud raised his eyebrows, draping his arms on the edge of the high desk.

The secretary shrugged. "The Director's a busy man."

"But wow, I mean, I don't think I could keep straight half the things you have to keep track of. Our entire department would probably grind to a stop without you."

She smiled and waved a faintly dismissive hand, looking up at him.

"And you still find time to keep in shape, too," he improvised wildly, deliberately letting his eyes drift downward for a second. She leaned forward. "You must work out more than I do," he continued.

She glanced down at his exposed arms with a short chuckle, and then she picked up the page that the printer spewed out at her side, sliding it across the desktop. "There you go. First Class mission pay in promissory note form. Just scan this code with your PHS to get the funds transferred to your linked account."

"And any PHS can do this?"

"Well, yes," she said, briefly puzzled. "So you'd better not lose it." She winked, and smiled.

Cloud tucked the sheet into a pocket. "I'll guard it with my life," he promised.

She laughed again. "I bet you say that to all the girls."

"I do if they let me."

Another laugh. A couple of her fingers came up to twine into a strand of her hair as she watched him.

Cloud grinned, as brightly and openly as he could manage to make it, and he leaned closer. "So, Mandy, I was wondering if you could find an address for me."

* * *

It was... a nice house. Small. Even smaller than his mother's house back in Nibelheim. But that one had been constructed to withstand the snows, with thick walls, thick roofing, thick doors. There wasn't any room for anything non-functional there. This house had little touches. A wooden plaque carved with flowers hanging over the door. An optimistic little planter sitting empty at a window sill.

And everything had that bare, scrubbed kind of look that said even if they couldn't afford paint, they'd damn well afford soap.

The other buildings in the area had been roofed with that corrugated iron Cloud saw a lot in the slums, with rust eating at the corners and graffiti covering every available surface. The most colourful one had compared ShinRa to a festering, rot-eaten dick. This one had nothing on its grey walls—whitewash always picked up the dust that choked Midgar—or its faded tiled roof. Maybe the vandals had decided to steer clear after figuring out who lived here. More likely, it had been scrubbed away.

Cloud stood just outside the gate to the wooden fence. It had been made by hand, carefully and expertly constructed, but it hadn't been touched up for a while. Some of the planks were starting to warp in the Midgar damp, so it was twisting, one slat splintered down the centre from the way the wood around it was trying to drag it out of the earth.

A couple of people were out in the empty space in front of the house that Cloud thought of as the yard for lack of any better options. The man was dwarfing the spindly chair he sat in, peering with a bemused smile down at whatever it was his daughter was scratching into the dirt with a lump of white chalk.

The little girl saw Cloud first, and her eyes went wide just before she darted behind the chair.

Hoffe brought his head up. He blinked, and he stood.

"Cloud?"

* * *

Voices rumbled through Goblins Bar. The man standing behind the bar was filling another glass from the draft fonts standing along the varnished wood, but his eyes were flitting around the dim room, the look on his face half suspicious, half confused. He probably had military in his bar pretty often, and they'd probably gotten kind of rowdy after a few drinks more than not, but this was probably the first time he'd gotten so many at the same time. And a good portion were Soldiers. Some had come in uniform still, directly after duty.

Cloud stood at a high table, resting his arm on the only non-sticky patch of surface he'd managed to find on it. Condensation was slowly beading off the outside of his drink.

"Hey, sir."

He looked up at the voice, and he smiled back. "Hey, Timms."

The Third was in civilian dress. He'd probably just arrived, given how full his glass still was. He took a sip, wiped the foam from his lip, and opened his mouth to say something.

"Cloud!" Someone else suddenly slung an arm roughly around his neck."Why didn't you say something about this bar night earlier? I had to find out from some random dude who came by to get his oil changed!"

With the way Jamie was half-heartedly trying to throttle him, Cloud figure he was out of the mechanic's line of sight when he glanced at Timms and rolled his eyes. The Third smothered a snigger, made a crooked shrug, and padded off to where a group of other Soldiers, McPhee included, were arguing about something heatedly.

"I didn't know about it, either, until today," Cloud said.

But Jamie had already backed up to eye his uniform. "Looking sharp, there."

Cloud snorted. "Right."

"I'm gonna get a drink." The mechanic headed toward the bar, dodging a frazzled-looking waitress along the way.

"I don't think they serve cherry cola here," Cloud called after him, grinning.

"I'll figure something out." Jamie waved over his shoulder.

Snickering, Cloud turned back to his little table.

It had been a bit awkward at first, with Hoffe. Especially when he'd pulled out the pay note and made some bullshit excuse about it being part of Hoffe's severance pay that was owed him retroactively because of some change the company had made in policy. Hoffe hadn't looked like he'd believed Cloud for a second, but he hadn't called him on it. It had been embarrassing enough as it was.

But then his daughter had piped up to tell Cloud, very seriously, that his eyes glowed like her dad's.

It had been a while since he'd seen Hoffe laugh, the way he covered his eyes with his good hand and turned red from the neck up.

Then, when he'd been leaving, Cloud had stopped and turned around again. He'd told Hoffe that Kunsel had made him agree to meet up in Goblins Bar that night. Hoffe had smiled, but he'd put his hand on his daughter's hair, and he'd shaken his head. He was watching her that night, since his wife was working.

Cloud had just nodded, because he hadn't known what else to say.

There was a spike of noise, and Cloud looked up. Sephiroth stood in the doorway, and half the men were hesitating, nearly out of their seats, about whether to stand. The General glanced over at Cloud for a moment, and then he absently gestured at the men to sit back down as he walked toward the bar. A cluster of Soldiers quickly backed away, saluting, and Cloud could see a couple of their bewildered expressions when Sephiroth waved them off.

Ha. Cloud turned away, shaking his hand to dislodge a drop of water clinging to his glove.

"Sir."

Cloud twisted his head over his shoulder to stare blankly at the man standing beside him. Tall, buzzed head, dark eyes without mako. He didn't recognize the guy at all.

Then, the man's mouth thinned into a lopsided sort of smile, and Cloud's eyebrows shot up to his hairline.

"Ryerson?"

Ryerson nodded, saluted, and headed off looking vaguely pleased about something.

Cloud watched him, frowning, and then he shrugged. "Weird," he muttered to himself.

"What's weird?"

Kunsel hopped up onto the stool across from him and set his pint glass down right into a puddle of something on the table.

Cloud scowled at him. "You are."

"Sure, whatever." Kunsel brought his glass to his mouth. "What are you doing over here alone? You're a First now. Go schmooze."

Cloud gave him a dry look. "Right, because that's exactly what Firsts are for," he said. Then, he sighed quietly. "You know, I don't know about this."

"About what?"

"This." Cloud waved a hand at the black uniform. "What the fuck am I doing? Firsts have to be, I dunno, leaders. Inspirational and all that bullshit. I just get pointed at things ShinRa wants broken and told to go. I can't do all the other stuff." He shook his head because Kunsel was starting to stare in that way that meant he thought Cloud was severely retarded. "I'm nothing like Angeal, Kunsel."

"Cloud, you—" Kunsel started, sounding exasperated, and he stopped to make an all-suffering gesture at the ceiling. "There's more than one type of leader, you know? I mean, yeah, Angeal was a good leader, but no one ever said you had to be like him."

Cloud must have looked doubtful because the Second put his drink down again to jab a hand toward his face.

"You do know this entire thing tonight is as much to celebrate your promotion as anything? That's why everyone's here. _You're_  why everyone's here. You bring people together. There's  _Turks_  here." Kunsel jerked a thumb over to the other side of the room, where he could barely see Reno's red hair. "Even General  _Sephiroth_  is here."

Cloud let out a short laugh. "Yeah, shit, I didn't think he'd actually come when I asked him. I don't know how this even happened. I mean," he squinted at the Second, "why are  _you_  here?"

"Yeah," Kunsel said promptly, "who are you again?"

Cloud snorted loudly at that, and they both started chortling.

Taking another drink, Kunsel tilted his chin toward Cloud. "Came in uniform, huh? Trying to reel in the chicks?"

"I don't have to," Cloud said, leaning back to cross his arms, trying not to grin. "They come to me on their own." He scanned the room. "You see that brunette near the table?"

"The hot one?" Kunsel turned around.

"Want her number?"

Kunsel's head whipped back to him. "You're shitting me."

"You can't have it," Cloud said blandly.

Kunsel was quiet for a long time. "I really hate you sometimes."

"Only sometimes?" Cloud picked up his drink, straightening up to stare speculatively at the Second. In his other hand, he carefully palmed the little glass bottle he'd pulled from his pocket. "You know, since I outrank you now, I could have you put on the red eye shift for a week for that stunt with the bleach."

"You can't, because that would be an abuse of power." Kunsel smirked as he brought up his glass to his mouth.

"You're absolutely right," Cloud said evenly, his face blithely passive. "Which is why I emptied a bottle full of bitters into your beer while you were looking at that woman." He clapped a hand on Kunsel's shoulder as the man started choking and hacking his lungs out. "Enjoy your drink, Soldier."

He moved out of the way when Kunsel made a grab for him.

When he approached the bar, Sephiroth dipped his head in acknowledgement, holding a glass of something that was still mostly full. It was probably going to stay full, if the displeased look the General sent at it was any indication.

A crooked grin on his lips, Cloud took a seat next to the other First.

* * *

**TBC**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, before anyone lynches me for so drastically altering Hojo's characterization, I have two things to say.
> 
> 1\. I'm aware of the popular concept of scientists as heartless, hyperlogical douchebags. This is a part of the reason why it's so difficult to establish an open line of communication between researchers and the public, forcing a reliance on media that more often than not sensationalizes the data it presents in order to sell the story.
> 
> 2\. I'm a microbiologist, and I'm not that evil, right? Although I suppose my mice would beg to differ.


	13. Reason or reprise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cloud figured, afterwards, that he probably should have known that it'd be too good to last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and settings are property of Square Enix. No profit is being sought from the writing of this fanfiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
> 
> Some obligatory rambling on my part: So. It's been a while. All I can do is apologize. And apologize again, because I'm probably not going to be able to improve update speed anytime soon. I've gone back to school, and I've never had so many hours of class in my life.
> 
> Shitty excuse, I know. I suck. I know.
> 
> We're still more or less in canon right now. It's going to stay that way for at least the next part, when some loose ends get wrapped up plot-wise. Let me know if anyone despises the wonky balance I'm trying to keep between canon and some semblance of originality, please. And, well, the angst. Kind of inevitable, given the, you know, mental issues we're dealing with here. I'd always known it was coming. But ugh.

* * *

**Part 12**  - Reason or reprise

 

 

He can't move.

Nothing. Nothing will move.

"—rret doesn't think that you'll—"

It sounds. Sounds.

"But I just  _know_ —"

No. Sounds strange. Like something that should be familiar.

"Cloud—"

Supposed to. Voice. Pressure. A touch. Warmth drips onto the back of his hand. Drip.

"—ake up—"

By drop. It's not warm anymore. Just wet. Thin fingers that drag heat out.

Nothing moves. His fingers will crunch and snap if he forces them anymore. Brittle, dry sticks. Bark skin peeling and curling. But maybe it's the shriveled muscles. They aren't. They.

" _Cloud,_   _please_."

And suddenly it's clear. He knows. He knows the blackness before his face is the shut lid of the coffin over his head. The immobility that of a stiffening body. The wetness on his hands the rot of soaked wood. The thump of damp earth slapping down on the case. Splat. Splat as they bury him into the ground.

And his throat frozen, he cannot let out the scream clawing holes through his vocal cords. No sound. No way to beg. Plead not to bury him and leave him to the worms nosing their blind way through his sagging slimy skin. He feels them wriggling, eating in increments into the fetid sludge underneath. They'll eat and eat until he is nothing but an empty shell, collapsing slowly inwards. A hollow discarded peel.

Chewing. Crumbling.

* * *

Cloud jerked, dank, chilly sheets strangling his legs as he struggled to sit up.

Dark. It was too dark. Grave black.

Rolling, he tipped over the edge of his slab of a mattress and slammed his knees to the floor. The impact jarred his joints, a knife of an ache shooting up his legs, but he ignored it in favour of staggering towards his apartment's shut door, tripping and reeling in his terror-driven rush.

He crashed into the frame, fumbled for the knob, and half-toppled, half-collapsed into the soft golden light tracing the corridors of the Soldier Seconds' residential floor.

Sharp breaths rattled in his mouth as he braced himself on shaking arms, knees twisted somewhere under him. His mouth tasted overly warm, and he swallowed and swallowed again, forcing down the bile. It tasted acid sharp, slopping over where he could feel his pulse hammering in his neck. The thumping sounded too much like the noises the dirt made while he was getting buried, and so he squeezed his eyes shut. He could still see the tiny blood vessels in his eyelids, faintly green so that they looked like they were filled with mako instead of blood. Even that hadn't been there. In the dream. The green. Funny thing to miss, really, but it would have been... familiar. Instead, all he'd seen was pitch black.

"Shit, Cloud, you gonna be okay?"

Gradually, he registered the warm palm pressed into his shoulder blade. Cloud looked up at Kunsel. Behind him, at the end of the hall, he could barely see a door ajar. There wasn't any light coming from the opening. He probably hadn't heard the Second leave his room down the hall over the sound of himself hyperventilating.

Gulping a breath down, he pushed up off his hands and rocked back onto his legs. He looked around. There were a few other Seconds clustering around him, one that he recognized from a mission busting down barricades in Wutai giving him a concerned look. The others stood behind the two MPs that guarded the floor, one holding both their rifles and the other with his hand on the tranquilizer gun issued to all MPs that had to come up this far into the Soldier areas. They'd started carrying them after the desertion, as far as Cloud could remember. It could put down a rampaging dragon with a hit somewhere close enough to the chest, and the man had the stoic expression of someone ready to stick to protocol.

Cloud nodded jerkily, bringing up a hand to scrub at his eyes. It came away damp. "Yeah," he said, breathed, and nodded again. "Yeah. Fuck. Sorry for waking you."

He lifted a hand and let Kunsel pull him up to his feet.

"Uh," he said, dropping his eyes and shrugging because Kunsel wasn't saying anything. "Yeah, sorry. Just. Yeah, just a dream."

"Do you—" Kunsel bit off whatever he was going to say when Cloud looked at him.

Cloud forced out a short laugh. "Nah, don't worry. I hear it's, you know, expected. Shitty dreams." He straightened up, realizing that he was still leaning on Kunsel's arm. Splaying his fingers out, he shrugged again. "It's fine. I mean, shit, when  _Angeal_  caught m—"

His mouth shut. His teeth clicked together with enough force that he thought he'd cracked his jaw. It was that look again. He knew that look. Mostly puzzled. A bit hunted. And he knew what the next thing out of Kunsel's mouth would be.

Cloud shut his eyes desperately, as if he wouldn't be able to hear if he couldn't see.

"Angeal? Who's Angeal?"

Edges of the scream leaked past his gritted teeth. Kunsel gasped audibly when Cloud surged forward, fingers twisting into the fabric at his collar. "What the  _fuck_  is going on?" His voice came to his ears as a garbled mess. There was more, something unintelligible, and then it resolved into a shrill shout. "Why does this keep  _happening_? Why do  _I_  remember—" He whipped around, snatching at the closer MP as he felt the needle tip jab into his shoulder. "No! Don't touch me!" he roared. "Don't you  _fucking_ —"

* * *

Cloud's eyes snapped open.

He stared up at his own ceiling, disoriented. There was the familiar yellow water stain from some unnamed leak upstairs, and that little constellation of graphite-smeared holes from that time he'd had a report to write, Travers had gotten bored waiting, and he'd had way too many pencils readily at hand.

He'd thought he'd wake up strapped to that chair in Hojo's lab. Or maybe the infirmary.

Someone pounded on his door again, the thuds practically shaking the frame, and he realized that it was what had woken him up.

"Oi, Cloud!"

Struggling out from under his sheets, Cloud rolled onto his feet and padded over to the front door. He hesitated.

There was more pounding. "Cloud!"

Cloud pulled it open, and he stood, blinking at Kunsel, who still had his arm raised.

"Took you long enough," Kunsel grumbled, stepping back. "Come on, get your gear, the Director's sending us all out. The General took off alone, so we need your orders."

Cloud didn't move.

"Cloud?"

"What just..." he said, gingerly reaching a hand over to the shoulder he knew he'd gotten the tranq dart in. He wasn't sure what he'd expected to feel, but it wasn't a whole lot of nothing. "Wasn't I just—"

"Just what?" Kunsel said impatiently when Cloud stopped.

He'd gotten pretty good at telling when Kunsel was faking something over the years. It was a bit harder, since he couldn't see the man's eyes, but he'd figured out the way the Second held himself, the edge to his voice. If this wasn't real, then Kunsel was convinced that it was.

He could still feel the stinging stab, the wide bore of the needle digging its way through skin and muscle.

"I..."

"What? Look, we have to hurry it up. I heard that Angeal was sighted below plate."

Cloud pressed his mouth into a tight line, took a long breath through his nose, and nodded. He had no fucking idea what had just happened. "Give me twenty seconds." He spun around, letting the door swing shut behind him.

It was... like a do-over or something. He reached for his uniform top. Or maybe he'd dreamed the first time. He'd had some pretty fucked up dreams lately.

He grabbed his sword harness, swinging it over and around his back.

But he didn't want to get tranq'd again, and admitting to some kind of psychotic break probably wasn't the best way to avoid unwanted attention.

But if this was all some kind of elaborate trick trying to catch him out or, or  _humour_  him, or... He wasn't even sure that this wasn't a dream. Maybe he really was in the lab, hooked up to something that was keeping him under while the Professor adjusted him or whatever he called it, and he was actually going to wake up with his brain swapped for a chocobo's.

Cloud slammed through the door, tightening the buckles on his harness as he sped down the dim hallway, and Kunsel fell into step behind him.

He didn't look back. It was hard enough without looking at Kunsel. Because then... He suppressed the thought. Shoved it down into the shadowy pits of his mind as hard as he could. Because if Kunsel was somehow in on this whole... whatever the hell it was.

His fist clenched, just for a moment, on the hilt of his sword.

* * *

Cloud ducked, feeling the path of the curved blade snap at his hair, and twisted into a sharp pivot that brought him about just behind the Genesis copy's shoulder. Bunching his legs under him, he sprang upward, a two-handed grip on his sword. It sheared through the clone's armour, its straps tugging at his blade and the rip of the clone's flesh causing the barest drag of resistance as the momentum of his attack took him into a couple of quick hops backward to catch his balance.

Whirling around, air whining over steel as he brought his sword around to finish the arc, Cloud rammed the tip through the last clone and felt more than heard the man's ribcage splinter under the blow. Opening his mouth to drag in a deep gulp of air, Cloud glanced around. He was alone. Well, except for the bodies.

Cloud straightened, lowering his sword. The highway was empty except for the occasional abandoned car that had probably belonged to some early morning labourer who'd been on his way to work when the attack started. Now, the sky was heavy with smoke painted a lurid orange, so he couldn't tell if the sun was on its way up already or not. The gutted carcass of one truck still had flames spilling out of its shattered windshield, and another lay still on its side, gently creaking whenever a gust of wind shoved at it. Three lanes of the road vanished abruptly in the distance, the mangled metal skeleton of the overpass visible through the billowing smoke ahead. Vaguely, he could make out half of a ShinRa logo, and the accordion-folds of what had to have been the blades of a helicopter.

He'd sent Kunsel and the other Soldiers scattering through the sectors after the Genesis copies a couple of minutes before a huge explosion had rocked the streets, rolling a wave of deafening pressure off of the closest highway ramp, and Cloud had taken off running before his brain had caught up to his ears.

It had most likely been the chopper. A mako engine explosion could send shrapnel through solid bedrock. Some charred ShinRa metal probably still sat under Wutai topsoil, even after the cleanup crews had gone through.

It'd been weird, though. The Genesis copies hadn't been as vicious as he remembered.

Eyeing the unmoving bodies again, Cloud stepped over a slack leg and started into an easy trot down the road. If he kept going this way, he'd reach the Sector 5 pass.

It'd almost been like they'd been waiting for something, or trying to keep him occupied while—

 _Fuck_.

Cloud spun around. The ShinRa building loomed over the highway, its windows points of light barely visible over the glare of the floodlights sweeping the streets.

This time, he ran.

He'd barely made it more than a few steps when his PHS started rattling at his side, and Cloud dug it out of his pocket to fumble at the flip lid.

"Strife here," he said, as soon as he'd managed to get the earpiece up.

"Cloud, get back to HQ."

Cloud glanced down at the number, and he grimaced. "I'm on it, sir," he said, his breath coming in bursts as he hurdled a Genesis clone's ragged torso.

"I understand you mobilized the men on Lazard's orders," Sephiroth said, his voice tight and clipped over the connection.

Cloud winced again. There was a patch of blood here, spread over the majority of the northbound lanes from the clone who'd been fast enough to hurl himself backward and avoid the edge coming at his throat, but not fast enough to make the jump over the back swing that had sheared off his leg just over the kneecap. Then Cloud had put his sword through the man's collar. The blood made splatting sounds over the pound of his boots. He kept running. Fuck. He should have— "Yeah, I'm sorry, I—"

"And I cannot locate Lazard at this time," Sephiroth interrupted.

Cloud frowned, and when he realized he'd been slowing down, started running faster. "Huh?"

"Angeal was a distraction. A decoy."

Wait. That almost sounded like the General was suggesting that Angeal was the reason that the Director was missing. He looked up, scowling as the ShinRa building seemed to grow into the murky sky. He should have realized. It was his  _job_  to think about this shit. "Do you think something's happened to the Director?" No. Fuck. Even before all that. How the hell had anyone thought that he was smart enough to  _deal_  with this shit?

"His office was undisturbed," Sephiroth said distractedly, "but I can't confirm." His voice sharpened. "Call back whoever you can reach," he ordered, "but your priority is to get back here, Soldier speed."

"Yessir," Cloud said, a second before the PHS line disconnected.

And then he was throwing himself into a roll under a blur of metal. The back of his neck burned, feeling like it'd lost a layer of skin to the weapon slamming into the asphalt with skull-crushing force.

Half-splayed out on the ground, Cloud raised his head cautiously. Black rubble crumbled off of the bladed ring as it lifted up, glinting orange under the flames reflecting off the cloud cover. Carefully, slowly, he tucked his PHS into a back pocket. He'd gone through so many of the damn things in the past couple of months that he was sure Requisitions had his name on a black list somewhere. Straightening, he watched the gleaming red armour. It clinked softly as the figure rested the black shaft of his weapon against a shoulder.

Cloud pressed a hand over his nape and felt the dampness. As he brought his arm down, his eyes flicked to the blood on his fingertips and back up. In the stained light, all of the spokes on the ring looked red. The man held it like a mace. Probably a man, or had been a man. There wasn't much face under the red mask to be able to tell. A sickly black stub of a wing hung from his shoulder, limp and drooping like every brittle bone supporting the ripped feathers had snapped under its own weight.

He couldn't see any eyes, not through that mask, so he watched the hands and the legs.

When the Genesis copy lunged forward, weapon howling as it scythed through the air, Cloud lurched backward, slapped a hand into the asphalt, and brought a boot swinging around at the clone's knees. The clone jumped, and Cloud grinned fiercely. He completed the spin, hacking up towards where the man's neck would pass as he tipped backward.

His sword met nothing.

Moving in some kind of eye-twisting contortion, the clone had managed to duck in midair, kicking himself backward and shedding a flurry of limp feathers.

Cloud stood, batting a few of the feathers out of his face, and eyed the clone.

The bastards were evolving or something. None of the other ones had been that fast.

Cloud shifted his grip on his sword, and then he heard it. The faintest flutter, just overhead. He wasn't sure what kind of compulsion it was that made him duck, a moment before the world seemed to blow up in his face.

The abandoned truck he'd seen earlier spewed shrapnel and fountained ash at the force of the body slamming into its side. Reeling backward, Cloud clapped his arm over his mouth and nose, wheezing as he crouched, blinking rapidly.

As the dust settled, the blur of white started to resolve itself into a massive wing, spread out wide to balance the Buster sword biting down past the clone's collarbone and halfway through the remains of the truck, and Cloud tensed. Slowly, unfolding himself vertebra by vertebra, he straightened, sword held loosely in a hand as he stared at Angeal's back.

The deserter had tugged his blade free and was wiping it against the clone's feathers. Finally, with what could have been a moment of hesitation, the man turned. In the soot-stained light, mako eyes gleamed.

"Cloud."

Cloud bit the inside of his mouth until he tasted blood. "What was that for?" he said eventually.

Angeal glanced over his shoulder at the dead Genesis copy. It was starting to liquefy into that same grey goop Cloud had seen in Wutai, and the stink spread, overpowering even the smell of scorched rubber. As he looked back at Cloud, the blank mask plastered firmly to his face, Angeal shrugged a shoulder. His wing fluttered. "Thought you could use a hand."

"I don't need your help," Cloud snapped. Too loud, too quick. Fuck.

Angeal's eyes flickered. After a while, he said, "I saw Sephiroth jump down after you last time. Were you hurt?"

"You mean when you dropped me off the plate?"

Another pause. "Yes."

He didn't even try to look contrite. Just... Fuck. Cloud shook his head, stepping past Angeal, down the highway toward the ShinRa building. "I'm fine—"

"I need your help."

The words came low and quick, and they stopped Cloud in his tracks.

He turned around. "What?"

"Genesis is at HQ right now. Hollander discovered that to stop the deterioration, he needs something from Hojo. Genesis came to take it. I want you to help me stop him."

Cloud stared the pitted ground as the jumble of sounds slowly resolved itself. His forehead creased. "Stop Genesis?"

"Yes." Angeal was watching him silently.

After a moment, Cloud threw up his hands, making a strangled noise in the back of his throat. "I can't ever figure out what you're thinking, Angeal!"

There was something that could have been a laugh cut off before it escaped. "I don't know what I'm thinking, either, half the time," Angeal said, a bitter twist to his mouth. "Sometimes I wish I'd just given up right from—" He broke off, and shook his head, taking a step closer. "But I want to save my friend, even if that means preventing him from doing something irreparable."

Cloud watched Angeal close his eyes. "What the hell is it that you think I can do that you can't?"

"Something we've all forgotten."

Cloud frowned. "Huh?"

"Honour. Pride. Dreams," Angeal muttered, low and muffled, like he was speaking to himself. He suddenly swayed, as if broadsided by a blast of wind.

"Angeal?"

Angeal took a couple of quick steps back, raising a hand when Cloud reached out. "Don't worry. It's nothing."

"But you—"

"It's nothing." Taking a slow, deep breath, Angeal straightened, looking up at the ShinRa building, and suddenly, Cloud didn't want to—couldn't—look at the other First. He twisted, peering up over his shoulder at the shadowy bulk of the building. More lights had gone out in the windows, and Cloud felt his fists clench.

"Angeal," he said quietly. When the man tilted his head toward him, Cloud nodded briefly. "I'll help you."

For a second, Angeal didn't react, and Cloud thought that maybe he'd forgotten what they'd been talking about. But then there was a sharp flit of a smile, and Angeal was standing over him, white dove wing spread out and ready. "Hold on tight."

Cloud's eyebrows knotted. "What? Hey. Shit—!"

As the ground dropped away from his feet and his stomach plummeted into his boots, Cloud squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to think about how Angeal had acted like Genesis sometimes did when he'd forgotten how to be normal.

* * *

Cloud stopped in front of the frosted glass doors, and he forced himself to breathe.

Angeal had sent him to check up on Hojo before the other First had rushed off to take care of whatever he could find on other floors, and now he was standing in front of Hojo's lab, trying to slow down the hammering of his heart into his throat.

His experiences in that lab had been unpleasant at the best of times. And then there was that... whatever the fuck it was when Kunsel came to wake him earlier that day. He still wasn't sure if it had been real. He wasn't sure if this was real, right now. It would damn well explain a lot if it wasn't. Angeal... re-defecting. Sure sounded like wishful thinking on his part. But if this was real, and that tranq dart in his shoulder hadn't been, and then Hojo _found out_ —

He'd be strapped to that shiny gurney he'd seen in there faster than he could blink. Waiting to get fixed, or whatever Sephiroth had called it.

Plus, there was that... shrill, needly little voice in the back of his mind that screamed at him to stay the fuck away from Hojo no matter what that he couldn't explain. It was almost a feeling, how wordless it was. Just a phantom blotch of fear. And it was there  _all the time_ , until he barely registered it and it was just part of his head. The only reason he noticed it at all was because it had shut up, just for a little while, when the Soldiers had organized that thing for him at Goblin's, and the silence had been unsettling.

And now he couldn't get his hand to come up to hit the sliding switch on the door. His entire body was locked up, joints and bones fused solid with the half-freezing, half-frying sensation of that goddamn fear. But it wasn't like he could actually run. He had to go in there.

Because he was a member of Soldier fucking First Class of the ShinRa fucking Electric Power Company, and he had a job to do.

If this was what Timms and the rest of them called a hero, they could stuff it up their collective rosy-coloured asses.

And Angeal—

Cloud shook his head hard, jabbed at the release catch before his brain could catch up to his hand, and stepped into the laboratory on orders of someone he wasn't sure he could trust to protect someone he was damn sure he  _couldn't_  trust.

* * *

Hojo was easy enough to find. He was scribbling away at that clipboard that seemed to be perpetually glued to his hand, and he completely ignored the whine of the door sliding shut behind Cloud. He didn't look up when Cloud approached, either. His mouth moved soundlessly as he wrote, and heavy lines creased his forehead.

Cloud resisted the urge to shuffle his feet, just to break up the empty-room drone that ate at his ears. Hojo's assistants were nowhere in sight.

"Are you unharmed, sir?" Cloud hazarded after another long moment.

"Hmm?" Hojo paused, but only to scan whatever it was that he had written. Cloud was sure that the scientist hadn't heard a word of the question.

"Professor?"

Hojo finally looked up. "What?" he said shortly. He glanced over Cloud. "I'm busy, Strife. You're not injured. What do you want?"

Cloud's mouth worked noiselessly for a moment. " _What?_ "

The Professor heaved an exasperated sigh and bent back down over his writing. He crossed something out with a heavy scratching sound and wrote over it again, muttering something that sounded like "Fourteen milligrams."

"Sir, the building is under  _attack_ ," Cloud said, not even bothering to smother the disbelief.

Hojo scowled at him over the top of his glasses. "I gathered. And?"

"My orders are to take you to safety."

Hojo snorted. "I'm not leaving, Strife."

Cloud willed himself not to rip the clipboard out of Hojo's hands. "Sir, Genesis is—"

"Think about it, Strife," Hojo interrupted. "If Hollander's boys are here, it's for my work. I am not about to gift wrap it and place it neatly into their hands."

"And if Genesis kills you, he'll  _get_ —"

"Your mission is to protect me, is it not?" Hojo cut him off again, voice hard enough to chip ice.

Cloud eyed the Professor, vaguely hoping that he didn't look as suspicious as he figured he did. The man was watching him expectantly. "Yessir."

"You are fully capable of doing so if I stay here. Your last recorded statistics are at least on par with those of Genesis in most major categories. And that was before his deterioration." Hojo paused, a hint of satisfaction edging over his face. "I made sure of that."

"But he's going to come straight  _here_ ," Cloud protested.

"Well, you'll just have to protect the lab, too." Hojo swung around dismissively, pulling open a drawer in a filing cabinet sitting against the wall and starting to rifle through it.

It was, as far as Cloud could recall, the weirdest vote of confidence he'd ever gotten.

"Strife, hand me that file."

Cloud flinched. Hojo had moved at some point, and was hunched over his desk, flipping through some pages. "You may as well make yourself useful. Especially since my assistants decided to take the day off," Hojo said, a sarcastic edge sliding over his voice.

Shit. Cloud shook his head sharply, trying to dislodge some of the sluggishness. He was getting sloppy or something. It felt like he was looking at the world through some kind of cotton mesh that blurred away all the edges. Like those dreams that looked so damn real until he realized that there wasn't any detail to the background. Just shadows.

"Any day now."

Cloud looked up to find Hojo eyeing him. "Right," he mumbled, heading over to the table the Professor had indicated.

On the other hand, it was hard to get more real than Hojo when he was feeling nasty. Cloud wasn't sure how comforting that thought was.

He froze, hand just over a stack of papers and a piercing chill scraping down the back of his neck.

He heard it a second later, the inorganic hiss of the door slotting back shut. He spun, already running. The soles of his boots made a tortured squeal against the sterile linoleum when he skidded to a halt. With his hand wrapped around the hilt of his blade, tight enough that the leather of his gloves crackled, Cloud watched Genesis through slitted eyes.

The other First's eyes slid slowly from Hojo to him. But Genesis didn't move, didn't speak. He didn't do anything at all, really, but stand there, a loose elbow draped over his sword's pommel. In the dead fluorescent glow, his red coat gaped like a fresh wound.

"I'll hold him off, sir," Cloud said quietly, without turning his head.

There was a hoarse, short laugh, and Hojo's long jacket rustled loudly as he stepped forward. "You mean to tell me that I should run from Hollander's failures?" The Professor's voice grated into what was left of the silence.

Genesis's eyes narrowed, chips of mako shine, and his fingers curved, making an aborted movement toward his sword's hilt.

"And you, boy," Hojo said, arms crossing over his chest as one side of his mouth curved up. "You think that Hollander can save you? Seal the cracks with more incompetent fumbling when he doesn't know the first thing about the Calamity?"

" _Sir_ ," Cloud hissed.

"Or," Hojo continued, "are you simply so determined to play the tragic hero you love so much?"

Genesis finally twitched, a jerk of a step forward, and Cloud moved on instinct, bringing his sword slashing down as he grabbed Hojo's shoulder with his other hand and yanked the scientist backwards behind him. Genesis stopped short, falling back again out of his reach, and Cloud snarled through bared teeth, "For  _fuck's_  sake, sir,  _don't_ —" And he snapped his mouth shut, choking off the sharp inhalation that tried to force its way through his lips when he felt the shaking in Hojo's arm.

The Professor wrenched away, eyes still on Genesis. "Hollander can't make anything except monsters," he spat.

"Stop it!" Cloud said, desperation a shrill tinge to his voice as he watched rage blacken Genesis's face.

Hojo's words rose into a shout, " _My_  Sephiroth is perfect!"

In a flash of red, Genesis drew his sword, and Cloud shuffled backward, broadsword held defensively in both hands as he boxed Hojo backward with his own body, and when the door glided open, gears grinding in protest of the rough hand shoving it aside, he almost didn't notice but for—

" _Genesis!_ " Angeal's breath came in harsh gasps as he stood just inside the lab, the Buster pointed at his friend. "That's  _enough_!"

Genesis kept his sword raised. "Angeal," he said, fury tight in his mouth.

"Ha!" Hojo barked, a brief crack to his voice, but he kept going. "The entire freakshow's here now!"

Genesis's eyes snapped back to the Professor, and Cloud tensed for the spring, but then the deserter shut them again, taking a long, visible breath, and stepped backward.

"My friend, the fates are cruel," he murmured.  
"There are no dreams, no honour remains  
"The arrow has left the bow of the goddess."

Cloud felt the growl in his chest. "What the fuck is it you're trying to say  _this_  time?" He said.

But Genesis ignored him, turning to face Angeal instead. " _Loveless_ , Act IV."

" _What?_ "

Hojo snorted at Cloud's impatient outburst. "When the two friends duel." He gave a dry laugh, as if he'd composed himself, but Cloud could see how tightly the Professor had his arms crossed. "He really thinks he's in the play."

Motionless, Angeal didn't act like he'd heard Hojo. Hard creases between his eyes, he addressed Genesis. "And the outcome?"

Genesis shook his head slowly. "The fifth act has long been lost. But perhaps..." His eyes turned to Cloud. "They claim the gift of the goddess," he said, barely audible.

And suddenly, with retina-scorching brightness, Genesis's blade blazed nearly white, and Cloud's mouth opened in a wordless yell as he prepared to block because  _fuck_  he couldn't dodge, not with Hojo behind him, and Angeal leaped forward—

But when Genesis swung, it was out towards to the smooth white of the wall. Feathers whipping up in twisting black funnels in the wake of his passage, he leaped through the crumbling drywall and grey mortar dust, out into the smoke-tainted sky. With a heavy snapping sound, his wing stiffed to catch him in midair. There was a languid flip of his feathertips, and Genesis rose up toward the black clouds.

He turned, just a bit, just enough for Cloud to see the twist to his lips.

"My soul corrupted by vengeance  
"Hath endured torment, to find the end of the journey in my own salvation and your," here, glowing mako eyes found Cloud's, "eternal slumber."

Air whistled sharply through Cloud's clenched teeth as he stared upward into the spiralling feathers, the black tufts obscuring fragments of the circle of magical energy painting itself into the darkness. He recognized it, even if the lead ball hadn't been sitting in the pit of his stomach as magic crackled close enough to singe. " _Shit!_  He's summoning something!"

"Genesis!" Angeal's voice bellowed by his ear, a moment before the broad white wing slammed down at the charged air and lifted Angeal slicing into the sky.

"Hey!" Cloud yelled, watching with wide eyes as Genesis threw himself into a dive before rising up and away, Angeal chasing behind with audible pumps of his wing. "Wait!  _Angeal!_ "

The magic circle boiled, air spitting in short, violent sparks of decomposing matter, and with an ear-splitting crack, the space ripped open, moisture in the air turning to steam that coiled and wreathed around the emerging bulk of serpentine neck and arched wings.

A downward flap blasted at the air, threatening to lift Cloud up off his feet, and he hunched down, broadsword tight in his hands as he stared up into Neo Bahamut's ink black eyes. Fuck.

It was looking straight at him.

Oh holy mother of  _fuck_.

Genesis apparently didn’t skimp on the displays of massive power.

Even without his blood simultaneously freezing in his veins and boiling through his ears, intertwining with the panic that hugged every fibre of his spine, how the  _fuck_  was he supposed to— It wasn't like he could  _fly_ —

It tilted its massive horned head, something malevolent in the intelligence flickering through its plate-sized pupils. Cloud stared, pinned in place. Then, it opened its mouth.

Light gathered. Just glimmers at first, but then they spun and twined together, growing in intensity as it collected every bit of magic out of the air and condensed it down into a writhing ball of solidified, implacable destruction. And Cloud still stared, his breath lodged in his pharynx, too hard to swallow, too solid to escape.

But he couldn't— He  _had_  to—

Because  _fuck_  if that thing hit, not just he, but half of the whole goddamn building would be incinerated into nothing but an oily patch of ash smeared across the ground. So—

_Move!_

The echoes bounced around his skull. Meaningless sound that didn't register in any kind of conscious thought, not until later, when he was already surging forward, halfway out into thin air. Cloud extended a leg as he hopped out of the hole Genesis had left in the wall, twisting enough to kick back. His boot connected solidly with the concrete facing of the ShinRa building, and he  _pushed_. Wind roared in his ears as he soared up towards the summon, drowning out the unintelligible shout that scraped his throat raw. His vision tunnelled until he saw nothing but the ponderous shift of scaled muscles when the Bahamut swung around, neck twisting sinuously to face him. Roiling blue light was leaking out from between pillar-thick fangs. And he whipped his sword upward with every bit of strength he could pour into the blow just as it started to open its mouth even wider and the blinding brilliance etched acid lines over the back of his eye sockets while his eyeballs seemed to liquefy into his head.

More than half blinded, Cloud didn't see the blade connect. It was just a jarring smash that nearly knocked the sword out of his hands. Accompanied by a bellow, solid sound pressure that felt like it had blindsided him with a sack of bricks, the summon's head jerked upward, and the flare spiralled up and melted tattered holes through the clouds. The explosion rocked the sky and made the Bahamut recoil and snarl. It twisted its head around, fangs crushing together as it snapped at Cloud. But he was already falling.

He wrenched his body to the side, toward the ShinRa building. Spinning his sword around into a backhanded grip, he stabbed backward. The blade bit into the side of the pebbled cement, scoring a deep groove into the façade as he started skidding down the side. Cloud leaned his full weight onto the hilt, digging deeper and deeper as it sliced through the wall.

And finally, with a jarring yank that threatened to pull his shoulder out of its socket, it stuck.

Cloud clung to his sword, pulling his legs up to plant his boots against the vertical wall. His feet slid, soles scrabbling for purchase over the cement until they held, and he stood, half crouching, half dangling, leaning hard against his sword where it kept him suspended fifty stories above the concrete sidewalk and the sludge his skull would make smashing open against the ground.

He opened his mouth, sucking greedily at the grainy air as he forced himself to remember to breathe.

Another roar rocked through the building, making the wall shudder under his feet, and Cloud felt every muscle in his body tense as he watched Neo Bahamut fold its wings and plunge down toward him until the bared fangs seemed to fill his entire line of sight. Gulping down, his mouth full of acrid spit, Cloud steadied himself against the cement, braced both hands over the hilt of his sword, and waited.

 _Now_.

He leaped, wrenching his blade free and curling his knees up to shove as much force as he could into the blow when he tipped forward and cleaved downward into the summon's snout.

There was a crunching sound, a scream almost too loud to hear, and then crushed scales were spiralling down like flakes of ash. The gash in the Bahamut's nose was dripping black. It was almost like ink, if ink somehow dissipated as it lost contact with its source. His sword bounced off, sending him tumbling backward on the rebound, and as Cloud started to plummet to the ground, the summon swiped a truck-sized paw at him.

Cloud twisted desperately, a garbled shout coming out at the lack of leverage, and so instead of ripping out half of his torso, one black claw punched through his stomach and flung him back into the wall with a meaty thud.

Cloud's mouth opened soundlessly, all breath battered out of his deflated lungs. He gagged, struggling to pull in the air at the same time. It made him choke, black and white specks obscuring his vision.

Heat.

The skin over his stomach felt hot, like something was cooking him from the inside out. It was probably just his blood, its warmth burning him as it began to weep from the wound, running faster by the second as it started to catch up to the hole in his belly. Something dazed in the back of his mind wondered if he was bleeding out on someone street-level below. If they were freaking the fuck out about the giant dragon monster in the sky.

He couldn't make his voice work.

The summon would have drowned him out with its own roars, anyway.

The whistling in his ears told him, somewhere, vaguely, that he was falling. The scratching at his back. He was falling down the ShinRa building.

He should— No, he—

He was falling, unable to force the limp dead weight of his limbs to reach out, to let go of his sword, even, to try to—

He stopped, the jolt forcing chunks of mucous-laced blood into the back of his mouth. He retched, spitting and hacking, trying to drag oxygen into his rubbery airway.

Slowly, the sensation of hands twisted in his uniform top penetrated the fog in his head. He saw the white knuckles straining to support his weight, heard the indistinct buzzing, warping sound of the voice shouting in his ear. It took so much effort to turn his head that he almost gave up halfway through, but he looked over his shoulder, seeing the barest sliver of blue armour in the corner of his eyes. Half of a face.

"Timms?" he croaked, creaky as rotten wood.

The Third's mouth was moving, paper-white skin stretched tight as a drum. He said— He was saying—

Cloud couldn't fucking hear.

Bahamut was coming again, black-red maw descending from the sky. It grunted, flecks of dark fluid splattering from its ruined nostril, and its mouth parted. Blue tendrils twisted around its teeth, leaking out over its jaw. The tips lifted up, almost alive, sniffing at the air.

Well, as if this shitfest wasn't complete. Now Timms was going to die because of him, too.

He tried to curse, but the words came out mangled, and he forced,  _willed_  his arm to move. Some broken edge of the wall was digging into his shoulder, and he reached up and hooked his elbow over it. His vision swam pitch black for a moment at the stretch to the edges of his wound. Gasping hard, he hunched over his stomach, feeling the pressure on his collar increase as Timms hauled him up and onto the edge of the floor while broken bits of drywall and dust ground themselves into his clothes.

Sitting, half curled into the smashed wall, he shook his head when he felt Timms tug again.

"No," Cloud mumbled, pulling his legs under him and pushing at Timms's hands. "Get away."

"That thing is going to  _spew_  any second, sir!"

His sword felt so heavy, dangling from his other hand. Cloud gritted his teeth, ignoring the sick grinding feeling as he shifted, laboriously pulling his sword up, just enough that he could wrap both hands around it.

"Sir!"

"Get the fuck away from me, Timms," Cloud managed to say, low and tight. "Grab Hojo and run." He looked up, watching the massive mouth descend.

It was looking at him. It had been looking at him all along. Just him.

Cloud watched it come. Under his fists, bumps of beads were pressing into his hands. They were faintly warm, normally, when active. Now, the materia set into the hilt of his sword spat sparks and heat. 

The jaw stretched, glistening fangs slashes of white against the black, looming over him with the beginnings of a roar rumbling through the back of its throat.

And it screamed and screamed when Cloud surged forward, thrusting himself out into the air as he stabbed up into the roof of its mouth and buried half of his blade through the thin bones of the summon's palate. The materia blazed under his palms, and the air cracked sharply, broken glass shattering, as the dampness permeating the sky this high up the ShinRa building started to condense and crystallize rapidly.

Bahamut twisted in agony, trying to shake its head away, but the sword was lodged tight, made tighter by the vice grip Cloud had locked around the monster's neck with his knees. It pumped its wings, climbing up into the sky in haphazard lunges.

Lips pulled back in a snarl, Cloud poured magic into the Blizzaga. The energy sizzled in his veins, white hot and cold at the same time, filling him and draining away at the same time until he could barely feel anything. The hole punched through his stomach was a dull ache. The howling in his wrenched joints replaced by weak protests. And the chill grew, white frost spreading across the summon's snout like creeping mould. It was growing over the blade of his sword, too, anywhere it wasn't incandescent with magic.

It was vibrating under his hands, like the strain of magic was ripping the metal apart and the individual atoms were seething to separate from each other. The cold was biting at his fingertips, where the skin was turning bone white. And the magic grew.

It wasn't his first sword. That one had been broken during a training session with Angeal, when he was younger and more of an idiot. Before Angeal had taught him to respect them. But it was a good one. Nothing special, but well made. It shivered under his hands as the magic used it as a conduit and made it tremble. The blade was getting thinner, more brittle with wear, for every time he'd had to smooth away the nicks and regain the edge. He'd have to replace it soon. It wasn't going to last much longer.

The ice seemed to flow from the steel, sinking into the Bahamut's skin where it pierced through its mouth. It crackled, making the wind taste like metal under Cloud's tongue. The scent of ozone sank into Cloud's nose, from the spikes of magic that snapped off and ripped apart the air around them. It was the only smell. Apart from his blood. Summons weren't organic and had none of the stench of real animals. The ice spread, piercing through the Bahamut's head and turning its scales into crystal shards, black and glittering. It crept at first, inching its way along the draconian snout as the summon writhed, unable to even bellow anymore, and then it began to move faster, an inexorable sweep of a building wave growing taller and taller until it crashed over in a hammer of foam.

And the Bahamut stilled in the sky, frozen solid, great wings spread wide enough to engulf half a city block. Then it began to fall.

Hissing under his breath, Cloud struggled to pull free as cold air started snapping at his face in his passage. He yanked on his sword, kicked out with a heavy boot, and with a long, ominous crack in warning, the summon's frozen bulk shattered, unable to take the strain of both the wind pressure and the blow.

The explosion peppered Cloud's arms with stinging ice shards, where he'd hastily pulled them up to shield his face. It blew him backward, tumbling him into freefall, while numbness swept up his limbs and seized his lungs so that when the gash in his stomach shrieked in protest, scorching heat bleached out his vision and muffled his ears, and he couldn't open his mouth to scream.

Hot. Suffocating warmth pooling in his gut.

Nothing but heat. It singed his throat, coursed through his bones. Clamped over his arm.

And suddenly the jolt when it—the hand, he realized vacantly, a hand—clutched him, using his momentum— _falling_ —to turn his plummet into a wide arc of a swing. The force yanked against gravity, jerking hard—

A slick  _thump_ — His head snapped back, skull cracking against something hard. Smooth.

Tiles. A floor.

He hit it, felt it scrape over his side as he skidded, slipped out of the grasp.

Wheezing, Cloud lay still.

His mouth was flooding, thick metallic scent pooling into the space between his teeth. He spat out the blood. He wasn't going to— Fuck, he couldn't open his eyes. He couldn't move, rigid muscles seized in place.

He curled further around the hole in his gut, a hand clutching at the slippery mess soaking through his uniform.

Timms was— He could hear Timms. But what—

Timms was crouched over him. He could tell. Timms was shouting and—

"Will you stop  _clamouring_ , Soldier?" Hojo's voice cut through the mesh dampening his hearing. Sharp as knives. Close by.

Thin pressure of hands firmly rolling him off his side. Cold fingers prodding at the soaked fabric. A  _tsk_.

"You'd think you've never seen a stab wound before. Now shut up and do what I say if you want to save Strife."

As Timms gingerly hauled him up onto some kind of hard, chilled surface under the Professor's instruction, Cloud faintly felt his mouth twitch. The sensation came to him from far away, as if he was insulated by a cocoon of jelly. The pain was a dim thing, too, as was the bleary thought, drifting through as he let himself fall under the cocoon, that it was kind of funny how Hojo sounded so irritated that he had to patch Cloud up again.

Like he'd meant to make more work for the bastard, weird tightness to his tone or not.

The fuzz changed, turning softer, warmer.

Cloud's breath hitched.

He remembered—

Scratchiness of cheap blankets under his shoulder blades.

He'd been—

He—

_Soft voice, soft hands. A touch of patchy calluses and rougher edges around the nails, where the hands were most worn and—_

_No!_

_Not again! No no no nonoNONO_ NO NO!

The warmth leached away. The overly stuffy softness shifted to the cold metal of a table. Cold air of the Professor's lab.

The other place faded to the sharp edges and choking dust of the wrecked lab, and then to black.

* * *

The Genesis copies' attack hadn't lasted as long as the last one. There hadn't been as much damage to the city. Or maybe there had been, but ShinRa had been faster to respond this time. Maybe the people who'd lost their homes hadn't had a chance to rebuild in the first place.

By the time Cloud had woken, staring up at the familiar stucco ceiling of the infirmary, most of the clean-up had already been completed. They hadn't let him out of bed for a couple of days anyway. Not until he could walk without tearing out the stitches. So he'd spent long hours squinting up at the irregular little bumps radiating overhead while Kunsel had sat silently across the room, watching him warily.

He'd thought there'd be more... He'd thought that after everything, what he did, that maybe Angeal would—

But there wasn't anything different. There was barely any sign of the assault, not after ShinRa had finished with it. It wasn't as if anyone would kick up a fuss over what they'd been told anyway. There wasn't anything left beyond the scattered burn scars still littering the slums below plate and the emptiness in Lazard's office.

It hadn't seemed nearly that big when it had been occupied.

Halfway through the second day, Robertsson had walked into the room and flopped down into the chair opposite from Kunsel's, seemingly impervious to the other Second's stare. He hadn't said anything, or looked up at all, even when Kunsel had seemed to give up and slammed the door behind him on the way out.

And then the jackass had actually propped his legs up on Kunsel's vacated seat and dozed off.

It had been worth it, despite the way pain had jabbed through his gut when he'd cracked up.

Cloud paused in his stride, looking up at the edge of the plate overhead. Sector five had been damaged sometime in the attack, and he could hear the construction crew from down below. A crane was silhouetted against the greyness of the sky, but the cloud cover broke further off, sending shafts of watery sunlight streaking down into the slums.

Sector five was one of the seedier regions. Anyone else looking around distractedly might as well have painted a sign over his back that read "Mug me, I'm retarded," but Soldier black was one of those things that was universally recognizable. Cloud could see, just in his periphery, the way thin faces would turn to him speculatively before tightening and ducking away.

But there was one kid, scrawny under a mop of dark hair, who kept shooting him glances. From the way he was moving, he wasn't one of the seasoned pickpockets. All he was doing was drawing attention to himself, a shitty prospect for any wannabe thief. Drawing his face into a faint frown, Cloud turned to regard the kid.

The boy jumped, tucking his shoulders up to his ears as he pivoted away.

As Cloud watched, the kid sidled up to a street vendor's table, where some tarnished trinkets were on display. The boy seemed to ignore the way the vendor scowled at him. He was trying to look nonchalant, probably, his hands tucked loosely into his pockets.

A man in ShinRa Security uniform was poring over the wares, reaching out to pick up a plasticky fridge magnet made in the shape of the plate on stylized pillars much cleaner than the real supports had ever been after they'd been erected.

The boy suddenly spun and dashed off, knocking into the soldier as he passed. At the indignant shout, the kid waved apologetically over his shoulder.

Cloud half-shrugged, scratching absently at his nape as he turned away. He started walking again.

He'd been even more of a dumbass than that guy on his own first trip down below plate.

Letting his breath out in a short huff, he glanced around, hoping for something that looked familiar. He'd been to Sector five only a handful of times on mission. The low-level, incessant crime that dogged the region hadn't escalated to anything that caught ShinRa's attention too often. It was almost weird, how little information ShinRa had to share about the Sector five slums.

Like that church. He hadn't even known it was there. Religion wasn't exactly popular in Midgar these days, not after that time that Wutai festival—something about Leviathan or other—had been trashed, right at the start of the war.

But the Turks had known about it. Had been watching it, if how quickly Tseng found them was any indication, and especially with the way he'd warned Cloud off.

Well, he wasn't fucking well going to sit on his hands and do whatever the damn Turks wanted him to do. If there was something there at that church—the prickling sensation of his skin knitting back together settled phantom light over him, just for a second—that the Turks were hiding, there was no way that it wasn't something important.

Cloud viciously suppressed the little whisper at the back of his mind, the one that said all his self-righteous bluster wasn't doing anything to hide the fact that really, it was just some vindictive bitterness at his own sense of being so utterly fucking  _useless_  that was moving him.

What was worse was that it hadn't been the voice of his Soldier ghost.

Cloud shook his head hard, turning a corner at random in his search for that church. When he stepped into a dim alley fenced in by rusted metal walls, the kid he saw earlier whipped around and flinched hard from where he'd been crouching behind a stack of mouldering crates. Cloud stopped.

"What?" the kid said, a shake in his shrill voice. "What are  _you_  looking at?"

Cloud didn't say anything. As he watched, the boy's eyes skittered around, as if he was trying to glare at Cloud, but kept looking away when he saw the unnatural green glow. One of the crates had broken at the bottom, the thick crack leaking something slimy that stank worse than the sewage grate set into the side of the building edging the alley. It looked like it was starting to soak into the boy's shoe.

Exhaling, a whistling sound squeezing through his teeth, Cloud stepped back so that he wasn't blocking the alley's mouth. "Go home, kid," he muttered.

The boy didn't move for a moment, and then he was dashing by, biting off a single, aggressive word. " _Asshole_."

Cloud barely smothered the snicker, letting his eyes fall shut and rubbing a palm over their sockets. Oh hell. What was  _wrong_  with him these days?

He turned away from the dead end.

* * *

This time, he heard the rustle of feathers before boots thumped down behind him onto the packed earth of the deserted pathway lined with nothing but the rubble of abandoned homes.

"Cloud!" Angeal called.

He'd already been twisting around, heavy rubber soles making an overly loud scrape against the ground. He scowled, watching Angeal step toward him as he folded his wing down in some kind of eye-watering motion. The wing vanished. He waited, but the other First didn't say anything else.

"You left me behind again," Cloud said, low and dull.

Angeal's brows creased. "I'm sorry," he said eventually.

"The summon tried to kill me. It didn't want anything to do with Hojo or whatever big secret he's keeping from Hollander. It just wanted to kill me."

Angeal watched him silently.

"You know why, don't you?" Cloud continued, voice rising sharply. "You know what Genesis wants, and you won't  _tell_  me! Half the time he's trying to gut me, and then he  _saves_  me—" It was almost involuntary, the way he'd stepped forward, something hard and raging and fucking  _terrifying_  boiling in his gut, reaching up to grab at Angeal's collar or  _fuck_ —He didn't know.  _Anything._

He hadn't been expecting it, not with how distant Angeal had been holding himself, so when the sharp cuff to the side of his head came, he stumbled. He barely heard the other First snap, "Calm down!"

Cloud backpedalled quickly to regain his balance. When he looked up again, Angeal was still standing there, something tight around his mouth and something unreadable in his face.

Angeal sighed abruptly. "Look, I'm sorry. I had to go after Genesis."

Cloud turned his belligerent glare to the husk of a collapsed building half-spilled into the walkway.

Angeal had paused as if he'd been waiting for something. A reaction, maybe. He probably didn't find it, not with the way he sighed again. "Cloud, I know where Genesis and Hollander are. They've taken over an old ShinRa supply warehouse in the town of Modeoheim, and they're using the equipment there to make even stronger copies. I can't be sure that they didn't discover me when I was checking out their base."

The scent of something sweet and sticky rotten drifted in the air.

"I need to go meet up with Lazard."

At this, Cloud's head snapped up.

Angeal looked vaguely apologetic. "I don't know any more than you do. He only said that there was something that he couldn't accomplish at ShinRa." He paused, something hard flitting over his face so quickly that Cloud couldn't be sure that he'd seen it. "Go to Modeoheim," Angeal said quietly. "You'll find your answers there."

The wing unfurled with the sound of fabric catching in a gale, and there was a hard downbeat that made dirt choke the air, just before Angeal vanished up into the piercing emptiness of grey sky blending into grey horizon.

Cloud reeled backward, an arm clapped over his mouth as he coughed and eyes running as they stung.

Pounding footsteps behind him.

"Cloud!"

Kunsel spun as he skidded in his run, craning his neck to look up at the sky. His breath came hard and uneven.

"Was that Angeal? Are you alright?" He forced the words out through the gasps.

Cloud didn't respond.

"Cloud?"

His hands flexed. When he spoke, it was mirror flat. "Did they send you?"

Kunsel stilled. He saw the Second tense. "What?"

"Did they  _send_  you?" Cloud snarled, stepping in close. "Did they send you to  _follow_  me?"

Kunsel stared at him, mouth parting. He didn't say anything.

Cloud shoved past the Second, knocking him to the side as he stalked down the path, back the way he'd came. He felt Kunsel's stare boring into his back.

* * *

TBC


	14. Battle hymn of the vanquished

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You shouldn't have followed me all the way here." 
> 
> In Modeoheim... answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and settings are property of Square Enix. No profit is being sought from the writing of this fanfiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
> 
> Warnings: Violence, language, character death (although I don't see how that should be a surprise, given my track record. And canon). Speaking of canon, another warning- major liberties taken with canon.
> 
> Holy shit. It's been nearly a year. I suck.

 

 

 

Part 13 - **Battle hymn of the v** **anquished**

 

 

Cloud's shoulder blades were trying to crawl up into his ears under Heidegger's stare. People probably thought Soldiers were bad, with that creepy green glow that made everything look like a cut-rate paranormal investigations show, but nothing beat this, glittering black shards of glass just lying in wait in the dark.

"Modeoheim?" Cloud said softly.

Of course they knew. They knew everything.

Heidegger hadn't said anything the entire time. The man sitting beside him—Palmer, Space Exploration, makes off-colour jokes in the Aerodrome, a snatch of memory supplied—shot the other director a quick look before shrugging. He cleared his throat, bringing up a pudgy finger to scratch at the side of his nose.

"Yes," Palmer answered. "You'll go there immediately."

Cloud scanned the long table. Aside from Lazard, all of the executives were there. The President sat at the head, watching Cloud with narrowed eyes. Heidegger and Palmer were on his left, the head of Security leaning back with his arms folded under his heavy beard while Palmer did most of talking. Across from him, Scarlet was reading a sheaf of papers intently, a flawless red nail tapping against the varnished black wood of the table. Next to her sat the head of Urban Development, a tall mousy man who'd never actually spoken to Cloud, as far as he could remember. Tuesti or something. He was always frowning.

Cloud hesitated. "Just me, sir?"

The AC was on full blast in the meeting room, its vent set high over the President's head in the same immaculate brushed metal that edged every door this high up the ShinRa building. Vaguely, Cloud wondered if his breath was crystallizing in front of his face or if it just felt that cold because of the frigid sweat running thin streaks down his back.

Palmer waved a hand. "You'll get a couple of Security grunts. And there'll be a Turk."

A recon unit, Cloud recognized. Small. Half of it disposable.

Mount Heidegger rumbled in warning, and the man finally sat up. "You will have command," he said, "But keep in mind that it remains out of your authority to question any secondary objectives I may choose to assign General Affairs."

Like Cloud could have forgotten. "Yessir."

Heidegger was still staring at him. "Angeal was a trap," he said bluntly. "He meant to lead the Soldier operatives out of HQ as a distraction for Genesis." His voice took on a rasping edge. "And Lazard was all too happy to oblige."

Cloud carefully focussed somewhere in the middle distance. Prickles jabbed at his nape, signalling that the rest of the occupants of the room were probably watching him now, too.

"So it's fairly likely that you'll find some form of trap in Modeoheim, too. If Genesis was sighted there, he wanted to be found."

"Yessir."

Heidegger didn't say anything else.

Cloud dug the tip of a tooth into his cheek, and he took a deep breath. "Sir? What's in Modeoheim?" What were they so afraid of that all of the execs had to be here? From what Cloud had heard, they got along about as well as a house on fire. With deadly poisonous snakes in the basement.

"Genesis. Snow."

Cloud blinked.

Heidegger leaned forward. "We're sending you to find out, Strife. What do you  _think_  is in Modeoheim?"

"And after I find out?" He paused, and then appended through the cracks in his teeth, "Sir?"

Heidegger's eyes narrowed further. "Officially, this is a recon. Once you've found them..." The man's mouth twisted, making the scar etched down his face stretch into a gleaming strip. "The company trusts your discretion," a beat of silence, "Soldier First Class Cloud Strife."

Oh. A threat. That was more familiar territory.

Cloud saluted crisply. "Yessir."

Behind him, there was a thin creak of leather, and then it stilled again.

Scarlet straightened up, tilting her head to smile at the President. "There is still the matter of amalgamating the Soldier program into the core company," she said. "The only reason Lazard was able to operate unchecked for as long as he did was due to an overabundance of autonomy. I propose the Soldier program would best suit becoming an adjunct to Weapons Development."

Heidegger's head snapped up at this. "Were you born an idiot or are you just trying that hard to be one? Soldier as part of  _Weapons_? There's no way—"

As the shouting started at the table, Cloud stepped backward slowly, glancing over to the figure leaning against the wall by the door.

Sephiroth met his eyes with a dry look over his crossed arms. He motioned towards the door, just a quick jerk of his head, as he pushed himself upright. "Dismissed," he said quietly.

Cloud didn't even bother to smother the gratitude in his cracked grimace as he brought his arm up for another quick salute.

* * *

The sides of his PHS were warm in patches. He'd been fingering it for a long time. He swiped at the smudged glass, and his thumb streaked a clean—cleaner, anyway—swath.

He'd had to stop by Requisitions on the way out to pick up some supplies for the mission. He'd walked into the closet of an office, stopped in his tracks, and stared at the employee behind the counter while every one of the voices clamouring in his head told him to just turn around and walk out. It had taken a pointed cough to make him jump, sign off for the parcel, and head for the door. He'd stopped again, though, hesitant, and offered a stupid, awkward kind of apology. He still wasn't really sure what for.

Lazard's old secretary had just smiled thinly, but she hadn't responded. And he'd left because he couldn't quite remember her name.

Cloud exhaled loudly as he looked up, and the mass of condensation brushed against his jaw, barely perceptible. "Look," he said, aggrieved, "you could have waited for the pick up."

Tseng gave him an unimpressed look. "What?" His breath came in a ragged burst. His breath was starting to crystallize along his cheeks, making it look like the Turk had a patch of dead, paper-white skin dragging from his nose to this hairline.

"Your injury is slowing you down."

His own ribs were giving off a dull rhythmic throb. They'd just hit the mountain ranges that chained the Northern Continent to the sea when the chopper had triggered some kind of trap that had sent a shit ton of missiles streaking up out of the low-hanging blizzard up at the chopper. The Turk had managed to avoid enough of them that they hadn't hit the ground in a flaming mass of charred metal, but then something had sheared off an entire wall of the cabin and sent shrapnel grinding through the propeller blades, and they'd slammed into the white nothingness underneath. They'd plowed hard through walls of snow that had suddenly felt as solid as concrete slabs before shuddering to a stop.

Tseng grunted, turning his attention back to his feet. The Turk was having a hard time in the snow, where his fancy shoes had no purchase once the treads got packed.

"Or I guess Heidegger wasn't kidding about that secondary objective," Cloud said flatly.

He really should have known better because Tseng glanced at him again—and if he'd thought his tone had been flat, this was fucking mirror smooth and level—and the Turk said, "I noticed that Kunsel was not present to send you off, this time." The words suffocated in their blandness. "Did you perhaps—"

"Fuck  _off_ ," Cloud snapped. He should have known. If they'd gotten Kunsel, there was no way the Turks weren't in on it, too. He shoved his hands into his pockets and stared fixedly at where his boots were kicking up jagged little shards of crusted snow.

There was no reply, just the crackling of ice.

Eventually, given the crawl that the Turk was moving at, even that faded behind him.

* * *

Cloud looked up at the horizon. It was that kind of faded grey blue that made it hard to tell where it touched the churned grey of the snow all around him. The path had climbed up, curving around steeply before opening out onto the lip of a precipice. He stood still, the sheer drop a couple of inches from the heavy black plates of his boots, and he rotated a shoulder. It creaked stiffly as if on rusted hinges in dire need of oiling.

Overhead, the sky was silent and still except for the fat mass of a cloudbank drifting ponderously in front of the watery sun. Nothing flew in Northern skies. Probably for fear of getting shot down like they were.

The ground stretched away, far below him, swallowing everything with its emptiness.

He wasn't sure how long he stood there. Must have been a good while. The tips of his fingers were starting to get that tingly-numb feeling that meant he'd been immobile for too long without shelter. They'd been walking for at least three hours now, and he hadn't seen or heard any sign of the others for the past couple of them. After he left Tseng behind. He had this vaguely knotted feeling somewhere in his gut that this was probably the kind of thing that Angeal would give him shit for, if the other First hadn't, you know, left first.

But now, footsteps approached, squeaking against the packed snow.

Cloud turned around.

It was one of the MPs that had caught up with him. It was a big guy, dark edges of tattoos peeking out from under his collar that were only really exposed because of the way he was hunched over, gloved hands braced on his thighs as he dragged in deep gulps of ice-brittle air.

Cloud watched the man gasp for breath, feeling the endless emptiness gape behind him and the odd itch in the back of his mind expand.

It wasn't as if he'd...  _actually_  been expecting something. Something else. He remembered seeing the Private get onto the helicopter with them. There wasn't any reason for him to think that it might have been someone else.

Just this weird lump in his chest. This wasn't right. Something about the world just wasn't sitting right. Like a medium sized man was trying to pull off wearing extra large boots.

He forced a lopsided grin onto his face. "Hey, you made good time," he said brightly. The chasm at his back seemed to magnify the sound. "Didn't you say you came from up North?" He didn't usually ask this kind of thing. Not at ShinRa, where "home" could be a touchy subject, especially since the war. It was usually best to just talk about the here and now, and if they offered the information, hey, they offered. But he  _had_  to ask—

The MP heaved himself up straight so quickly that he rocked backward for a brief second, but then the man snapped a perfect salute. "Uh, nossir," he said, a slight puzzled edge to his voice, "born and raised in Midgar, sir."

And that sense of wrongness, that yawning emptiness, stretched out further into the grey space. Something was supposed to happen here. Something really important, barely out of reach in the back of his head like a toothache that he couldn't quite poke with his tongue, and it had just gone...

They started out as nothing but a little buzz of sound.

... wrong.

Voices. A barely remembered conversation.

" _...gaga_."

Laughter.

"— _laughing at me? What about_ you _—_ "

Something important.

"— _and everywhere else has none_..."

The voice, so familiar, rang in his head, harsh and clanging like he'd knocked over a tangled mass of wind chimes. Cloud hissed, his fingers digging into his temple. His eyes had closed at some point, screwing shut against the quick jabs of pain shoving thin spikes through the nerves just at the back of his eyeballs.

"Sir?" The MP was saying something. It was hard to tell, like a mosquito's whine in a gale. "Are you—" The rest of the words were swallowed into a hoarse shout, and Cloud shot out a hand to snatch at the falling man.

He'd felt more than heard the snow slide under the MP's boots as the man stepped forward, too close to the edge, and now, his fingers twisted into the man's uniform, white with the strain of the awkward grip. One of the Private's legs dangled fully off the edge of the cliff, and dull thuds came from below as blocks of ice and snow thumped their way down the mountain side. The ground seemed to vibrate under his feet, matching the shaking that was starting to spread through his arm and make his bones feel like they'd been made of overcooked noodles.

The man was staring up at Cloud, face hidden behind those stupid red lights of his helmet, and so tense that his muscles vibrated cord-like up against the fabric of his sleeves.

"Careful," Cloud hissed through his tight teeth, yanking the MP back from the edge as the man skidded again trying to catch his feet. "It's hard to see where the edge is because of the snow."

Something down below was still rumbling, but everything was too white and grey to see any details. Cloud just hoped that they hadn't started an avalanche. That'd be just the thing to go on his record. Buried small rural village under a hundred feet of snow, check. At least back in Nibelheim, the majority of the village had been far enough away from the foot of the mountain to avoid the brunt of anything falling—he supposed it was still called snow, even if it was compressed to iron-slab hardness—and the Shinra Mansion worked like a fairly good diverter.

"Sir?"

"Huh?" Cloud was vaguely aware that the MP had been speaking.

Now, the man hesitated, and then made some kind of aborted gesture with a hand. "Um..."

Oh. Cloud smiled quickly, letting it fall away as he shrugged. How did he keep getting saddled with the idiots who wasted their time worrying about him when they were the ones who'd nearly died? First Timms and Forenz, and now this guy. He could have sworn that Timms had been following him around more than usual after that shitfest with Neo Bahamut. "It was just déjà vu or something." It was kind of... nice. Sometimes.

The man nodded again before straightening up. "Okay, sir." He looked down and seemed to scowl at the scraped leather over his palms.

Glancing out at the empty space behind him while the MP bent to pat away some of the thick snow plastered to his knees, Cloud grimaced. It had been the voice of his ghost, he realized, even if it hadn't actually been talking to him this time. He'd almost forgotten about it, given how long it had been since he'd last heard it.

* * *

When they finally found something down in a valley, stark black against the snow, Cloud almost dismissed it because of how obviously abandoned it looked. The ShinRa logo was a smudge of barely visible red paint on the collapsed remains of the iron roofing. Everywhere else, rust had eaten its way through the metal panes, leaving brittle edges and blackened wood around the holes in the structure. It looked like it hadn't been touched by anything except the weather for decades.

Cloud drummed his fingers on the boulder he'd found off the main trail. It was one of those massive things that appeared out of nowhere on flat land, carried along by the movement of glaciers at some point eons ago. He crouched behind it, squinting against the glare of the snow as he stared at the building.

It looked empty. But there'd been a flash of movement just behind the crumbling stone walls encircling the area. A man in dirty red picking his way down a corridor, walking with the unhurried plod of a guard making his rounds.

"This was once a mako mining facility," said Tseng's voice, low and just by his ear.

After a moment, Cloud hummed, trying to pretend that the Turk hadn't just scared the shit out of him. The other two had caught up eventually, and Cloud had let them rest for a few minutes before herding the group down toward the valley along the single mountain path. Even exhausted from the climb, the Turk moved like a fucking cat.

"The storage house looks disused, but if Hollander is here, then I'd wager that the structure above ground is simply a front."

"So they're underground?" Again with the damn tunnels. It was like the first thing anyone did after going rogue was turn into a mole.

"Most likely."

"Right." Cloud drew his sword from its sheath, wincing at the slight scraping sound it made under the smooth hiss of oil. He checked the blade, pressing the pads of his fingers against the overly shiny areas where he'd had to smooth out the nicks and scores. Fuck. He should have replaced it back in Midgar, like he'd been meaning to for months now. Biting back a sigh, Cloud stood. "I'll go check it out."

"Wait."

Cloud watched as Tseng picked his way around the rock.

The Turk nodded crisply down toward the warehouse. "Since our objective is mainly reconnaissance, it would be best to avoid direct conflict for the time being. I should take one of the Security operatives and investigate, while you remain on standby in case we require extraction."

Cloud felt a grim smile twist his mouth. "You want to go in without me."

"I believe it represents the best chance for success, yes," Tseng said solemnly.

Cloud couldn't help the short, sharp laugh. "Oh right. That  _objective_."

A brief grimace crossed Tseng's face along with an unexpected hint of pure frustration in the man's eyes. "Strife, I don't know why you're so determined to believe that I am your enemy, or that I'm here in any other capacity than aiding you in this mission." The words came quietly clipped.

"You—"

Tseng raised his voice to interrupt him. "However, even if you are having a bad day, we have work to do here in order to protect the company and the people within it. So I trust you are able to set your personal grudges aside and focus."

Cloud eyed the churned snow underfoot, tracing the jagged crusts poking out into the air as his face burned in the bitter cold. It wasn't even so much the humiliation from being lectured on shit he was supposed to  _know_. It was some kind of sheer, impotent fury roiling in his stomach like the clouds of water vapour spinning their chaotic vortices in front of their faces. Because there were people counting on him, again, just like back in Wutai when he thought they were all going to die buried like rats underground.

But... Genesis was here. Maybe Angeal. And, he realized with a force that pretty much punched all the wind out of his gut, that all that loyalty to the Company, to Soldier, was just about as strong as a drenched sheet of paper in front of his need to finally get some goddamn _answers_. He'd chased Angeal this far, like a good fucking puppy, and he'd be damned if he stopped now.

Cloud wondered if that made him a traitor, too.

Tseng seemed to take his silence as a sign to smile that thin, controlled smile all the Turks used when they were playing bodyguard to the Vice President during public events intended to boost ShinRa's popularity standings. "Don't worry, Strife. I know there's been reason for you to assume aggression on the part of the Company lately, but I'm certainly not on assassination duty today." It was probably a joke, given the dry morbidity of it all.

Cloud raised his head and didn't bother holding back the ugly sneer on his face. "Like you trust me with whoever goes to that weird ass church in the slums?" he said, loud and hard.

The silence was tense as the smile slid off Tseng's mouth.

His stomach churning, bitter bile stinging at the back of his throat, Cloud stepped past the man. "We all have something we want to protect," he said. "Stay out of my way, Turk."

* * *

Cloud peered down at the murky space below, under his dangling boots. He'd found what turned out to be a skylight on the roof of the building once he'd pried away some of the rusted crust clinging to it. The guards had been a joke, either unenhanced or deteriorated to the point of having their brains calcify. They hadn't even reacted to the sound of Cloud ripping out the frame of the skylight.

The warped iron of the roof was starting to feel like the wrong edge of a knife digging into his hands as he hung in space, twisting one way and the other as he squinted downward. There was a hint of metallic gleam over to his left, and so he heaved, swinging to get up some momentum.

This was probably going to hurt, he thought, as he let go.

He hit the ground on one ankle—which screamed in protest—and collapsed into a roll. Flipping over on to his back, he blinked up at the little square of bland grey sky. The pebbled floor was cold and lumpy under his shoulder blades, and off in his periphery, he could barely see rusted railings separating him from a solid wall of black nothingness. He tried to breathe, feeling like someone had strapped belts over his lungs and started jumping up and down on him.

Maybe it was a whisper of sound his ears heard and hotwired to his brain without crossing any conscious bits of his mind. Maybe it was some rush of air movement that brushed against his skin. Or maybe it was the voiceless shriek in the dark spot behind his eyes that made him wrench himself to the side just as something slammed down into the space where his throat had been. Black razor claws gouged grooves into the metal flooring, accompanied by a screech that reached earwax melting frequencies.

The serpentine neck of the monster swung around as it followed him with a blunt, eyeless snout. Its claws retracted and extended like some nightmare version of a cat kneading at the ground, and Cloud's eyes skittered away from the still Angeal face plastered to the top of its head and looking way too much like a death mask for the comfort of the blender running in his stomach.

With a rumbling growl, the thing turned to face him fully, and an inane thought floated aimlessly through his mind.

What did it need vocal cords for? It wasn't like the thing had a mouth.

It tensed, muscles rippling under its silvery fur like so many trout stuffed into a fisherman's net, and when it leaped this time, Cloud was ready.

He'd seen cats trying to pounce on chocobo chicks before. They'd stare, unblinking, unheeding of any obstacles. The monster had fixed him with the same laser focus, even if it didn't seem to have any eyes to focus with. And just like the cats that had run full-tilt into the fence the chocobo farmer had put up surrounding the corral, the monster seemed to barely notice, just a little too late, when Cloud collapsed backward under the leap and planted both boots into the thing's belly before  _heaving_  up and over.

Yowling, spitting somehow, the monster smashed through the railing that edged the walkway.

It fell for a very long time.

Cloud picked himself off the ground, gingerly testing the ankle he'd landed on. It sent spark-like shocks up his shin, but seemed to hold alright. Limping slightly, he hurried off in the general direction he remembered the side gates being. Whoever was holed up in this dump was bound to figure out their guard dog-monster-thing was missing at some point, and he didn't particularly want to be caught alone when they did.

* * *

The place was huge.

An entire mining village could have, and probably had, lived in the building. After letting the others in, Cloud had ventured further into the facilities with the rest of his team in tow. He'd found some living quarters, with slab-like beds built into the walls that still had some remnants of mouldering sheets littered over them.

In one of the stall-like rooms, they found a body.

It was an old man, lying on his back on one of the beds. His skin had pulled down away from his face, giving him a skeletal appearance, but at least it hadn't turned to goop like some of the other bodies Cloud had seen. A black mass of dried blood covered his chest, fragments of bone mixed in with the fibres of the nightshirt he'd been wearing. The body smelled musty, like any decay that was going to happen had come and gone long ago.

"Bullet wound," Tseng said, from where he was bent over the corpse.

"Did the deserters kill him?" said the MP—whose name had turned out to be McCaul, born in upper middle class Midgar, where his family had done office work for ShinRa for years—from the door, where he had to hunch to peer past the low frame. They'd left the other ShinRa Security op hidden near the exit, where he had a clear view of the grounds and a hand on his radio.

"No." Tseng shook his head. He gestured at the wound. "See how it barely bled despite being directly over his heart? The scorching on the edges of the wound indicate that the bullet was shot at close range, as well."

"So he was already dead?" Cloud said.

"For some time, yes." Tseng glanced up at him from where the Turk crouched.

The small bed took up the majority of the space in the room, and Cloud had had to squeeze in after the Turk and stand with his back pressed against the wall so that the harness of his sword was digging in between his ribs. There definitely hadn't been room for McCaul's bulk, even though Cloud had never been that big, and Tseng was, well, a Turk.

"Why would they shoot him, then?"

After a moment, Tseng stood up. "I don't know. Perhaps they had standing orders. And I'm sure you have noticed that the behaviour of the Copies is erratic at best."

"Oh." Cloud watched the Turk move towards the door.

McCaul stepped backwards to get out of the way.

"Wait," Cloud said. When two heads snapped to him, he hesitated, gnawing on the inside of his lip. "Shouldn't we, I guess, bury him?"

In the quiet that descended like a smothering blanket of dust, McCaul shuffled his boots in the hallway, and Tseng stared at him.

Fuck. Wait. Cloud shook his head. "No, wait. I know we can't afford to carry him outside, but at the same time, we can't just leave him here. He's already been here for a long time."

Tseng just kept looking at him.

Cloud's mouth opened, and closed again. "What?" he said finally, probably just a bit resentfully.

The Turk made a movement that could almost be interpreted as a shrug. "I was simply thinking that you haven't changed as much as you probably think." And he gave Cloud that ambiguous little smile that he could never tell was real or not.

"What's  _that_  supposed to mean?" Cloud demanded.

"Nothing, Strife," Tseng said. He tilted his head towards the body. "Well? Go ahead."

Scowling, Cloud bit off the rest of the words trying to bubble their way out of the mess in his stomach. He touched his fingers to his bracer, feeling the cold smoothness of materia through the pads of his gloves. The first one crackled with thunder. Next was the half-acrid wash of healing magic. He found the Firaga in the last slot. Pausing, he blinked down at the body, and then reached out to draw the tattered sheet over the figure. Then he concentrated, making the magic as tight, controlled, and precise as he could manage, and he fed it into the gleaming orb.

When they shut the door behind them, McCaul looked a bit queasy at the smell of scorched hair and grease. Then again, Cloud figured, he probably didn't look much better himself.

* * *

There was a heavy steel door. It gleamed, far newer than anything else they'd found in the place so far.

"Looks promising," Cloud muttered, mostly to himself. Considering how decrepit everything else had been.

A bit further back, Cloud had found a large open area, made even bigger by the gaping holes in the ceiling. Fragmented tiles and bits of shingle had crunched and turned into fine powder underfoot. It was as if the elements had rolled up their sleeves, spat on their palms, and taken a hatchet to the room. Rock dust plated the bottom of a recessed area off to one side, the bottom of which had looked a good few feet deeper than the rest of the flooring.

"Oh," McCaul had explained, "it's a bathhouse."

When Cloud had turned to look at the MP, he'd pulled his rifle higher on his shoulder and waved a hand like it should have been obvious.

"You know, the communal type."

It'd turned out that McCaul's father had been sent to the nearby Icicle Inn for some kind of properties negotiation back before the guy had joined ShinRa Security, and he'd tagged along.

Then, when Tseng suggested that McCaul could probably have gotten a desk job like his father's, given his education, the MP had just made a face with what was visible under his helmet, and then he'd grinned and shrugged.

Tseng had actually smiled at this, and nodded.

And Cloud had been reminded why he didn't like it when people smarter than him talked to each other.

He did wonder how the Mayor back home would have reacted to some kind of communal bathhouse in Nibelheim, though. It probably would have been hysterical. The man had had a stick shoved up his ass for as long as Cloud could remember.

Cloud ran his hands over the door. No ID keypad. No fancy mechanisms. Just a huge chunk of metal with a thick bolt across the other side of it. It fit so closely in its frame that Cloud had to look out of the corner of his eye to see a shadow of the crack around it.

So. The old-fashioned approach. He looked at Tseng.

The Turk scanned the door, the wall around it, and the ceiling before shaking his head. "The wall around here has been reinforced to support the door, but the ceiling hasn't. I'll bring the roof down first before I could budge the door itself."

Well, that left one option. Cloud drew his sword.

Off to the side, he could see the others step back hurriedly.

He looked down at the length of his blade, where even the dim lighting reflected off the edge, and he winced.

"Sorry," he whispered, grasping the hilt in both hands.

He swung twice, once diagonally across, and once horizontally, ignoring the squeal of metal and the shower of sparks that fizzled out towards the ground as steel sheared through steel. Shifting his weight backward, he lifted a boot and slammed the heel hard into the spot where the slashes intersected.

With a deafening crash that seemed to rattle Cloud's teeth without actually relying on his ears to do any relaying, the door crumpled in on itself. Three of the pieces thumped and tumbled their way down into the pitch black space beyond, accompanied by a series of shuddering, artificial earthquakes, and the last clung stubbornly to one warped hinge.

Cloud peered past the mutilated door. The other pieces had sounded like they'd fallen downward, and now that his eyes were adjusting, he could just make out the outline of a narrow staircase dropping into a sharp turn. The edges were overlaid with the faint, gritty green of the mako shine from his eyes.

Jackpot. They'd found the rabbit's warren.

He turned to the other two, and jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the dark opening.

For a moment, McCaul didn't move, and then, quietly, he said, "Holy shit, sir."

"Hah," Cloud said, holding his sword in one hand and groping for the railing with the other. "That bad, huh?"

Yeah, sounded about right.

Almost monstrous, eh, Angeal?

* * *

Whatever Cloud had expected to find at the bottom of the staircase, it wasn't Genesis, grey splashed across his hair and down his coat like an infestation of vigorously aggressive mould, holding his blade pointed to Hollander's throat.

Cloud stopped just inside the room. It was bright; hard, varnished wood glowed under the yellow incandescent lights set into the high ceiling. Black, iron gating stood at the edge of the floor, a thin border between the brightness and the empty space beyond it. It was a continuation of the same mine shaft that he'd found earlier, when he'd smashed his way through the skylight.

A click, just by his shoulder.

Cloud jerked his head around to see Tseng, pistol raised and braced against a steady wrist, just a second before Genesis snapped out his free hand and a trio of fireballs blistered the air and sent the Turk flying into the metal panels lining the wall behind him.

Tseng made an inarticulate sound, shifted like he was trying to draw his knees under him, and slumped forward.

There was the unpleasant smell of something that had gotten singed, but Cloud could see the faint iridescent shimmer of Shell, barely visible against the Turk's ashy skin. He turned away. It had probably been the impact that had knocked the man out, more than anything else.

Cloud was aware of a loud rasping sound. It turned out to be his breath.

But Genesis ignored him.

"So tell me why, Professor, I shouldn't spit you where you grovel."

"You need me!"

"You lied."

Cloud watched Hollander's face turn red and purple in blotches. "I'm the only one who can possibly operate the genetic manipulator—" The scientist's voice cut off abruptly at the cold touch of blade to his throat.

"You  _lied_  to me."

There were spots of dried blood on the lapels of Hollander's white coat, wherever grey and black grime hadn't ground itself into the heavy fabric, anyway. Thin scratches etched their way down his cheek and chin to match, as if he'd dived headfirst into a vat of splinters and scraped his way down to the bottom.

"—know the initial solution I proposed wasn't ideal," Hollander was babbling, fear laced through every word, "but I'm absolutely confident that I now have the answer. With just a small supply of S cells, I can  _easily_  reverse your degradation and—"

"And Sephiroth is simply  _delighted_  to share, I assume."

Cloud's eyes jumped back to Genesis at the caustic tone.

"Well, no... I mean. The extraction process is somewhat invasive, but Hojo's supply—"

"Your time is up, Professor," Genesis interrupted again, softly.

Hollander shuffled backward as the deserter took a slow step. Dark stains crept down the back of his shirt collar.

Whatever the crazy in Genesis' head whispered to him on a regular basis, it hadn't let him neglect his sword. The sabre edge glowed the way something did when it was so sharp that it split pieces of light. Cloud wet his lips.

Fuck. He could really have used Tseng right about now. Fuckity fuck.

"Genesis," he said. And stopped. Because damned if he wasn't complete shit at hostage negotiations.

Luckily, for whatever reason that made sense to the former First, Genesis turned his head just enough to regard Cloud out of the corner of his eye and said, almost pleasantly and nearly not deranged at all, "You made it, Strife. I'm impressed." As if the last time Cloud had encountered the bastard, Genesis hadn't been trying to turn him into Soldier flambé or whatever it was called.

Cloud eyed the decaying man.

As if he hadn't nearly succeeded.

"You just keep coming back. Everywhere. I turn around, and there you are again."

His sword was still up, but he'd stopped advancing. Cloud could see Hollander, inching backward, wild eyes racing from him, to Genesis, to the open door McCaul had just come through.

"One minute," Genesis continued, mouth pulling into a crooked grin and voice rasping like it had suddenly grown barbs in it. "I'm sure I've got a dog biscuit around here somewhere."

Cloud kept his blade ready and loose in his hands, and his face neutral. Even if that had stung way more than it should have, coming from a lunatic.

That was about when Hollander screeched and dashed for the stairwell. McCaul jumped at the sound, but the MP rallied fast enough to take a couple of steps to the side and reach out to bar the way, even if his rifle wasn't particularly suited for close combat. Actually, it just got in the way, and when Hollander lashed out with wild arms and elbows and knocked into the butt of the weapon, part of the stock caught under the lip of the Private's helmet. The armour piece ripped upward until it flipped back and cracked on the ground with a metallic gong, the scientist managed to score a bloody groove across the inside edge of McCaul's eye socket and up the bridge of his nose. Hollander ran, his steps a fumbling cacophony of noise, up the dark stairs.

McCaul glanced at him, blinking hard against the trickle of blood leaking into one eye from the gash in his face, and Cloud twitched his chin toward the doorway. "Go after Hollander, McCaul!"

The MP nodded quickly before spinning. The back of his buzzed head vanished rapidly into the gloom.

Genesis hadn't moved through it all. He'd watched Hollander run, his face a disinterested mask. Now, though, he lowered his arm as the steady thump of footsteps faded, and the length of his blade gleamed red under the oppressive yellow glare of the light bulbs. It looked like dried and pressed fire.

Cloud was pretty sure he'd be able to match the other First's speed by now. Probably. After whatever it was that Hojo had adjusted in him. But Genesis was still just standing there, acting as if he didn't give a flying elfadunk that the guy he'd been about to spit had taken off on him.

"The arrow loosed; the bow string slackens  
The Goddess reaches out with golden Gift and closed eyes  
She flies; Song of air and memory—"

Genesis stopped. A bitter little smile touched his mouth as he eyed Cloud. "Act four, scene two," he clarified, like that made it sound any less like gibberish.

There was another pause as Genesis stared at him, something almost expectant in the acid mako glow. Whatever he'd been looking for, it was obvious he didn't find it in Cloud's utter incomprehension, because he sighed, and he started talking again.

"The Goddess laments the inevitable battle between the friends. She pities those who have abandoned her Gift, but she knows that no other path exists for the three."

Cloud realized that Genesis was actually explaining himself about halfway through. His jaw slackened, but the other man continued his interpretation with something approaching patience.

"The Prisoner must be saved. The Wanderer must return. And the Hero, he must fight."

And it hit Cloud, then. Genesis was right.

In Wutai, all those weeks ago, he hadn't wanted— He hadn't had any idea what he was doing, really. He hadn't wanted to be there. He hadn't wanted to fight. He'd still been hoping, maybe, stupidly, that Angeal would just show up out of nowhere, crack a couple of his usual, sarcasm-laden jokes, and then all of a sudden time would rewind, everything would be back to where it was supposed to be, and  _none of this would have ever happened_. He hadn't been thinking about anything else. He hadn't been ready for anything else.

And he'd been terrified and useless, and he'd endangered everyone that ShinRa had sent to follow him into that vipers' nest.

He'd almost died.

But somehow, he'd made it back, even with the lingering stench of fire and soot choking him, and he'd found his home under attack—and fuck it all if it wasn't depressing that ShinRa was  _home_  to him—and then he'd almost died again, and somewhere along the way... he'd stopped. He wasn't afraid anymore. Well, yeah, the black uniform and the accompanying enhancement spike helped, but it wasn't just that. Genesis was right.

Angeal wasn't coming back.

Lazard and Genesis, too. They'd chosen something else, something not ShinRa. Given the way his clones had pretty much torched the city, it was probably safe to say that Genesis didn't have any lingering attachments to the place, either. They weren't going to just turn around and say "Whoops. I didn't mean to desert. Silly me." Apart from how completely retarded that sounded, Cloud knew that they'd thought about this. Probably for a very long time. They were the people who did the thinking, anyway. They always were.

And then there was him. He'd chosen, too.

And he'd chosen the other people. Not ShinRa. He didn't give two shits what ShinRa wanted, not when it was buying out people who used to be his friends and turning them into spies. He'd decided to fight for the people like McCaul and Robertsson and Timms. The ones who saw him for the freak he was and decided that they didn't care. And Forenz, who did his job so quietly that no one remembered that he was there. And Jordon, and Geoffreys, and Hoffe, lost somewhere in the massive cogs on which ShinRa slowly spun as it ground its way through burnt time, money, and mako.

And Sephiroth, who didn't know how to be anything else.

They were the reasons why he wasn't running away anymore, and why, as Genesis put it, this battle was inevitable.

"So you're the hero?"

Genesis tilted his head in response.

"And I'm, what? The prisoner?"

"Naturally. Trapped within the walls of rank and rote."

Cloud snorted. "Right. Naturally."

Genesis had been moving, as he spoke. Cloud's feet had followed, somehow, some unconscious thought guiding them as the two traced a wide circle, keeping his distance. Each facing the other, each ready. Waiting. Some kind of macabre dance that promised violence.

Cloud watched Genesis' eyes, trying to remember if he'd ever seen actual malice cross the other man's face. And it occurred to him that this was some kind of pre-battle ritual, some delicate posturing, some kind of fucked up mind-game that he was going to  _lose_  because he hadn't known that he was playing and no one had ever told him the rules.

Frustration a solid lump throttling his throat, Cloud threw the game. "What is the  _point_ , Genesis?" His free hand came up, stretching open and clenching shut helplessly. "Is this all you wanted? Recreate some  _scene_?"

No response.

Biting back a curse, Cloud squeezed his eyes shut. The pounding behind his temples intensified as whatever was stomping on his brain started to really get into a groove.

"It's fairly simple, Strife."

There was the faintest noise, a tiny whisper of air. And Cloud was spinning hastily to turn his duck into enough of a parry that he could knock Genesis' blade aside as it changed its trajectory from quick stab into a whistling slash coming down towards his shoulder.

"If you do not fight, I will kill you," Genesis continued as he watched Cloud step back into a better defensive stance. "How's that for a point?"

Cloud didn't have a chance to answer before he had to leap over a swipe at his knees. He threw himself to the side, turning his tumble into a roll even as he snapped out a quick kick that clipped the armoured brace covering Genesis' wrist and forced the First to either fall back or lose his grip on his sword. Cautiously, he straightened. "Just peachy," he said, air whistling through gritted teeth.

And then he was diving again, massive fireballs making violent spitting sounds as they sailed over his head.

Thunder. He had thunder in the first slot. He tapped at the materia, a quick jab of energy that connected to the crackling core of magic that stuck, holding open a channel for the lightning spell. He'd always thought of it as the initial depolarization, the one that was always necessary before the thunderbolt could follow the path laid out for it back down to the ground. Thunder was fast. Thunder was flashy in the way it could split and throw up a light screen, just enough to hinder the vision of someone who wasn't expecting it.

Cloud shot off a blitz of quick spells in the general direction he remember Genesis being, not bothering to look over his shoulder to check to see if any actually hit home.

He skidded, backpedalling furiously to avoid colliding with the metal rails that lined the floor, and he pivoted just in time to see Genesis blast another wave of fire at him.

"Shit!"

He rolled himself into another dodge.

Fire was the strongest of the elemental magic, in terms of pure power. It didn't have to rely on breaking anything or frying any particularly necessary circuits for its effect. It just destroyed, rolling through flesh and armour alike and eating, devouring everything as it went until nothing but brittle ashy dregs were left over. But fire was a bit slow. There was always that moment of recoil, of concentration that was necessary to prevent the magic from blowing backwards into the channeller's face.

Cloud used that time, that split second of breath, to dodge and spin.

He came up behind Genesis, just as the deserter started to pivot, to raise his hand for another volley of fire magic, and he snapped his own lightning spell out, hammering it down towards the sliver of an opening Genesis left in his back as he turned.

It struck. Not strong enough to do any permanent damage, but just enough to sting, to crackle down the man's arm and make him hiss.

Genesis completed his turn, and fireballs whistled towards Cloud like a stream of missiles. The thunder magic must have had some effect, though, some kind of nerve damage as it had shot its way through the man's arm, because the magic went wide. As the fire whipped past Cloud's shoulder, he took a few half-leaps, half-sidesteps until he saw just enough of Genesis' back—red, grey decay, black soot—and he threw another flurry of thin lightning streamers.

There was a sick sucking noise, and black feathers burst out of Genesis' shoulder.

The lightning hit the feathers, but it seemed to have about as much effect as throwing drops of water at river. Whirling as it unfurled, the wing brushed aside the thunder magic like so much glitter confetti.

Through the storm of feathers, Cloud barely saw Genesis' face, teeth bared in a snarl as the wing  _pumped_ , flattening feathers to the ground at the same time as it flung even more up into the air, and then Genesis was right in front of him. The wing had propelled him, shooting him forward with about as much force as a battering ram, and all of it hit Cloud, focussed behind the fist that buried itself into his gut and lifted him off his feet.

A moment of pure weightlessness—

And Cloud came down hard, bouncing against the thick metal flooring with a meaty thud that echoed through the sloshing that filled his ears. Agonizing fire shot up his spine as vertebrae clacked against vertebrae and his joints rattled like dice in their sockets. He'd managed to curl up enough that his head just barely escaped cracking open against the ground, but the part of his skull that did slap into the metal screamed and sent liquid lead searing through his scalp.

Flashes coloured his vision, coruscating bright spots against the blackness that edged them.

Gagging, the walls of his airway contracting and rubbing dust dry against each other. His chest convulsed, heaving, but unable to force anything up.

And he knew that he couldn't—he didn't have time to—

He had to  _GET UP_.

It felt like strings, tied to his head, his ears, his collar. It felt like they'd yanked him up, surged him into a hunched crouch even as his sword arm came around in front of him, hilt in a tight, backhanded grip. And blindly, hopelessly, he  _slashed_  forward.

Maybe it was some kind of precognition that activated in his moment of sensory deprivation. Maybe it was Genesis, broadcasting somehow straight into his mind. Maybe it was dumbfuck luck.

He connected.

Wheezing, scrabbling for breath as the stars fizzled out in his eyes, Cloud looked up into Genesis' white, strained face.

The black wing arched over them, blocking out all light, and so Cloud could only feel the trickle of hot liquid running down the hilt of his sword where it had bitten into Genesis' side. It oozed, warm and thick, into the cracks between his fingers where they were clenched around the worn leather. He could only smell the sticky sweet scent of decay, centred on the slippery mess that was slowly sliding down the back of his hand, inching closer to his wrist.

Genesis' hand, the one that wasn't buried somewhere in the darkness below his feathers, clutching at his sliding guts, came up to Cloud's face. And for one brief moment, suspended somewhere between terror and hysteria, Cloud wondered if the man intended to claw out his eyes or something as retribution.

But then the cold, cooling fingers slid whisper-light across the ridge of his cheekbone, and Genesis' mouth opened in a smile.

Bloody spittle pooled at the corner of his lips before overflowing, sliding down his chin. And Genesis said,

"Even if the morrow is barren of promises  
Nothing shall forestall my return."

With a slick, slurping sound, Genesis wrenched himself up and back. He stood, swaying, slow shuffling steps taking him backward to where the iron fence stood between him and the mineshaft.

"This world, which demands my death... These broken wings."

He gasped again—a bubbling, wet gurgle—red teeth against a red tongue in a red—red everywhere—mouth, and leaned back.

There was a thick flutter of feathers, and a sharp flap of leather catching on metal for a moment, and Cloud watched as Genesis tumbled backwards, over the railing, and down into the blackness.

* * *

The first steps had been hard.

What the fuck.

He'd half-dragged himself, half-crawled towards the edge of the lighted area.

What the  _fuck_.

But then he'd stood, somehow, on legs that felt like they'd been poured in a jelly mould, and he'd stumbled his way over to the railing. Peering down, he'd seen a lot of dark nothingness.

 _What the FUCK_?

He couldn't figure it out. What it was that Genesis wanted. What he thought Cloud was supposed to do. What the  _point_  was.

He stepped over the last couple of steps up to the mining village level, air rasping through his lungs as the rest of his body ached and protested the climb, and the steep steps made harder by Tseng's dead weight hanging off his shoulder. There was something that he was missing. Something about that goddamn play that he just didn't understand—right, like he understood any of that bullshit—and then with Genesis toppling off the edge and falling into the bottomless pit almost... deliberately.

Nothing made sense.

But it wasn't like he had time to blubber over how he never seemed to get a break. Not with Hollander somewhere on the loose, the MPs alone up there, and an unconscious Turk to deliver back to Heidegger's bearded sneer.

Hah. Poetic, almost.

He'd almost reached the bathing pit thing when he stiffened.

Quietly, gently, he lowered Tseng to the ground, propping the man up against a mud-streaked wall. Something mildly sadistic in the back of his head cackled over the fact that the Turk would probably have to throw out his suit after this mission and blew a raspberry when he told it to shut up. He ignored it as he crept towards the open entryway. The door had rusted off its hinges ages ago, and it leaned, sad and sagging, against the opposite wall of the corridor.

Someone was in there.

Weak, filmy daylight was coming through the gaps in the ceiling, but the light travelled straight, barely scattering against the dust hanging in the air, so the bathing room seemed to be criss-crossed with lines of glowing white against the murkiness. It didn't so much illuminate the space inside as delineate the shadows in sharp relief.

He could see pieces of shapes. A wide back, in silhouette. A glint of metal over the shoulder—a buckle, maybe. And a swatch of gleaming haze as the broad blade latched to the back collected any stray droplets of light and seemed to magnify them into a fuzzy glow.

Cloud stood still, his knees rusted into place.

And further, beyond the shadow, in a puddle of light—

The body lay still, streaks of blood like angry crimson welts slashed across the ripped ground. Rough, woven blue and hints of tattooed curlicues sliding out from under the cloth. It emblazoned itself across his retinas, blue and red. No yellow filter of underground lights. Stark blue and dull red. It filled his field of vision, was all that he saw as he charged.

" _Angeal!_ "

The First— _traitor_ —stepped smoothly out of the path of his wild hacking swing. He turned, almost languidly, watching as Cloud barrelled past.

Cloud skidded to a hunched squat beside the crumpled form. His eyes on Angeal, he reached out to press the pads of his fingers to the pulse point in McCaul's neck.

He needn't have bothered, given the amount of blood running into the communal bath the man had tried to explain to him, guttering between broken tiles and gleaming black red where the drain had clogged years ago. They made rivers and tributaries flowing around the litter.

"You killed him," Cloud said. He noticed the shake in his voice, but it was dim, drowned out by the rage.

"Friend of yours? You did make friends quickly." There was a faint smile.

" _Why?_ " It burned him, inside out, scorching his lungs and mouth and poured his bones through smelters' pots. White, red, bloating him, filling him up until he couldn't feel the ground underneath his boots. Metal acid, the taste of mako, plastered itself to the back of his tongue and made it press thick and heavy against his tight teeth.

The smile faded. "Why not?" came the soft reply.

"Don't give me that  _shit_ , Angeal!" Cloud surged to his feet, squinting hard when his vision swam black and his ears clanged like he was underwater. His arms were probably wobbling, but the tip of his blade was steady, pointed at Angeal's impassive face.

It wasn't for McCaul, the rage. McCaul who'd been told to follow him to Modeoheim, probably knowing that the Company didn't particularly care if he made it back. Not completely, and that made it even worse. It wasn't even for Angeal, who killed like he breathed, because Cloud wasn't any better himself. It was for  _him_ , for thinking that it would have been  _different_  this time. For believing somehow, in some imbecilic, fucking retarded part of his dense head that maybe, even if everyone told him it was a trick, even if he knew somewhere inside that he was walking straight into a trap, that maybe it'd work out somehow. For  _trusting_  the bastard who'd left. Again.

Angeal barely glanced at the sword. Eyes and face empty, he raised his hands, just a bit, palms out. "Well?"

"What?"

"Come on, Cloud. You dealt well enough with Genesis. So come."

Cloud scowled. "Why should I?"

Angeal gave him a thin, wry grin as the other First reached over his shoulder. A soft click, and the Buster came loose in his hand. It hummed as he brought it forward to face Cloud. "Because you want to." He took several measured steps forward, and stopped.

Fucker. He was in the space, the short distance that fell within their differences in reach. The Buster was longer than the standard issue broadswords the Seconds got issued.

And the rage, the boiling corrosiveness in his gut, it did want him to attack. To take advantage of the likelihood that Angeal wasn't used to his increased speed, and that he could potentially get off a surprise pre-emptive. But—

Then, he was ducking under a horizontal slash, bringing up his sword to smack against the flat of the Buster. He shoved, generating a spray of stinging sparks as the edge scraped against the side of the Buster sword, grinding until it hit the cross-guard, and pushing upward to force Angeal off balance into a quick leap of a retreat.

Cloud hopped back himself, sinking into a defensive stance as he followed Angeal's recovery with wide eyes. He hadn't actually expected Angeal to attack. He didn't think that—

"Angeal!" said a new voice.

Cloud backpedalled even more hastily, moving until he could see both of the other occupants of the room. Hollander's coat was garish bright where sunlight struck it. He hadn't even heard the scientist come in.

"Good. Good, my boy!" Hollander clapped his hands together approvingly. "Now, I want you to kill Strife," he said, pat and matter of fact.

Angeal wasn't looking at Hollander. He stood quietly, where he'd landed, just watching. Against his silence, Hollander's triumphant exuberance seemed all the more harsh and grating. It seemed forced, somehow unnatural, like the scientist was trying to fake something more to himself than anyone else.

Cloud looked between the two. He didn't trust his paralyzed vocal cords, anyway.

"Do it, Angeal! Prove to him that Project S is nothing more than a fake, inferior copy!" The words spat vitriol into the dust.

In the continued lack of response, Hollander seemed to slowly deflate, pressed down by the heaviness of the air. Finally, softly, Angeal spoke. "Him, who? Cloud? Or Hojo?" There was a light, mocking lilt to his voice that Cloud had never heard before. "Should I be so proud to be a plaything in your petty power struggles?" Almost singsong in its malevolence.

"Who cares?" Hollander snapped. "Both! If not for your pride, then for the pride of your father—"

A roar cut him off. "My father is  _DEAD_!"

Hollander broke off, and the sound of Angeal's harsh breaths filled the room, as if the First had exhausted himself with his outburst. Then, the scientist stepped closer to place a hand on Angeal's shoulder. And he said, soft and unctuous, "Then for your mother, for Gillian, who gave so much for—"

With blinding speed, Angeal spun around, fingers curling back as his palm drove into Hollander's chest. The scientist flew backward, his trajectory fast and straight enough to make him look like nothing more than a ragdoll, before slamming into the floor with a sickening crunch.

"My  _mother_ ," Angeal told the unmoving, prone form, "took her own life for the shame of being your Project G."

Something must have shown on his face, because Angeal looked at him, utterly calm but for the white tightness around his mouth, and he said, "He's alive. But he might not be for much longer if he doesn't get medical attention."

"Okay," Cloud nodded, words escaping him in a gush. Angeal hadn't—he'd turned away from Hollander. Relief pounded at the inside of his ribs. "Then let me call for—"

"Which is too bad, really."

Cloud's mouth snapped shut.

"Because neither of you are going to leave."

"What?"

Angeal raised the Buster sword again and pointed it at Cloud.

"What are you doing?"

"I told you," Angeal said, utterly unreadable. "I'm a monster. What do monsters want?"

Cloud snarled. "Stop  _saying_  that! You keep saying that, but all you ever did was try to save—"

Angeal interrupted him again. "Didn't you hear, Cloud? Project G."

Cloud shook his head sharply. "Project Genesis, yeah, I know—"

"Idiot. It's Project Gillian. Project Gillian Hewley."

Cloud's teeth clacked together and grey blankness flooded his mind, washing away whatever he'd been trying to say. What? He couldn't—didn't—

"You see Cloud? Genesis and I are products of the same experiment. Hollander's game pieces, pitted against the results of Project S."

"What?"

"Project Soldier. It was the one that gained official support in the company. Hojo's brainchild. And me? I'm just like Genesis. A remnant of a failure. A monster, rotting away as I speak." A slow, hard smile crossed Angeal's face. "You shouldn't have chased me all the way here. Haven't I taught you anything? You still walk straight into traps, not a single thought in that empty blond head—"

"Bullshit!" Cloud finally found his voice. "You keep playing victim as much as you want, but have you forgotten? Me, Sephiroth. We're just as changed as you! The difference is that we don't just call ourselves monsters and let it end there! We fight it! We do shit with it so that we're not—so that we can be something else! So that we can go home at the end of the day and be us!" Cloud paused, mouth still working soundlessly, searching for exactly what he was trying to say. "Because. Because we're  _Soldiers_!"

To Cloud's shock, Angeal burst into laughter, the hard and deep-down kind that meant something like pure joy. He raised a hand, hovering where he could have dropped it on top of Cloud's head if he hadn't retreated clumsily at Angeal's approach. The other First just smiled. "Cloud. That Soldier's Pride. Honour."

"What?" Suspicion clung to his voice.

Angeal kept smiling. He kept talking, like it was all so obvious and if only Cloud could  _see_  it. "Genesis called it the Gift of the Goddess, you know. He wanted it so badly. He wanted you to prove to him that it existed."

"I—proof?"

Cloud felt bile rising in his mouth. Like the picture had fragmented, and all he was getting were bits and pieces, and maybe if he could find an edge, he might be able to put it back together. Like he was falling and falling and desperately reaching out for a handhold, for anything. But Angeal... Angeal looked at him like he was expecting something.

"Well, Cloud?" And Angeal raised his sword again. "Show me, as well. A Soldier's Honour."

"What? What are you  _talking_ —"

A dozen of the beasts that wore Angeal's face bounded into the room, snarling, hissing, and Cloud crouched defensively, but they passed by him without a second glance.

They piled into a thick mass of fur and naked claws, and from their midst came the wet, organic sounds of slurping, chewing.

They were eating each other alive.

Cloud looked up wildly, past them at Angeal, who had moved across the room to lean back against the far wall and sag down as if completely exhausted.

The deserter saw him looking and his mouth twisted. "I wouldn't take my eyes of it, if I were you. That thing is vicious. It came from me, after all."

Cloud's eyes snapped back to see fangs, tipped with red and gore, bearing down on him.

And he screamed and brought his sword up.

* * *

He didn't remember much of the fight. The monster had attacked relentlessly, claws and teeth everywhere, but it hadn't operated on any sort of strategy. It didn't dodge attacks coming head on, at point blank range, simply brushing them aside in favour of sinking another set of fangs into whatever it could reach.

It was probably the ugliest battle he'd ever gone through.

He'd hacked and hacked, no space to step back, no space to think or breathe.

He didn't remember anything, not really. Not until he was sobbing for breath, standing over a mangled mess of matted fur and slippery entrails while blood slowly dried where it clung to his face, his neck, his arms. Stinging his eyes. He wasn't sure how much of it was his, and how much was the clone monster's.

Can't have been all that much his. Not with the way his pulse was beating at his eardrums.

Gasping, spitting out the metallic taste permeating his mouth, Cloud looked up at where Angeal stood.

And the haze fell away from his mind in the one, molasses slow moment of clarity as he watched Angeal dart forwards and raise the Buster Sword in both hands. Sight and sound tunnelled, roared; white emptiness everywhere except where he watched Angeal come towards him, blade descending down at his head in increment by silent increment.

The clang of his broadsword coming up to meet Angeal's slash deafened him.

Time seemed to rush back, along with the rest of the world, and Cloud was painfully aware of the sound of Angeal's laboured breaths, of the biting chill spiralling in from the broken patches of roofing, bringing with it crystals of ice too small and compact to be called snow. The mako glow that engulfed every inch of his vision.

And he heard the cracks, the brittle crunches, small and slow at first, but rapidly spreading and gaining volume as spiderweb fissures raced through the blade of his sword, starting where the Buster had bitten into its edge and unfolding into the heart of the metal.

Another moment of suspended time, hanging by a wisp of a thread, and it gave.

 _Crunch_.

Snapped in half, just like his broken sword.

He knew it. He knew he should have replaced that blade. He knew it was far too weak to sustain any more damage. He knew. The sudden loss of pressure made half of it shoot backward in Cloud's hands with the recoil, biting deep into his shoulder and scraping along his collar bone in a way that made black and white sparks explode in his vision as he bit his tongue against the scream and heat flooded his mouth. The other half, the tip, spun tightly, flashed in the dank air, and ripped straight through Angeal's chest.

He didn't manage to catch Angeal as he fell.

Dust rose, billowing around them, as Cloud thudded down onto his knees. Retching, arms jerking around just as much as his seizing vision, he pressed a palm against the hilt standing out from his flesh and shoved. The broken blade came free, the edges of his skin sucking and dragging at the metal, and the pain shot beyond sensation to manifest as blazing, unimaginably hot light searing through his eyes. Mouth open in an ugly croak, he slapped his other hand against the gash, the ozone smell of healing magic already coating his fingers.

Choking on nothing at all, he pulled air forcibly in through his burning nostrils, since it wasn't getting through his mouth.

Four shuddering breaths later, the pain descended from something beyond any physical comprehension to merely debilitating, and Cloud leaned forward, feeling his ribs creak like the thick hull of a galleon under tension. Pins jabbed at all the nerve endings up and down his arm as he felt ripped muscles and cords knit themselves back together while magic dragged them along like a seamstress's needle threaded with green.

When he was sure—he thought—maybe—he wasn't going to keel over from blood loss or anything, anymore, Cloud raised his head.

The crippled metal stood up from Angeal's heaving diaphragm, where he lay on his back. It glowed, misty bright in the half-light. The First shook, gasps jolting his body.

Cloud crawled over to Angeal. That thin, high sound he was hearing. It came from him, didn't it?

He reached out, and Angeal's eyes flicked to him, wide, white all around the mako-soaked blue.

His mouth opened in a soundless scream when Cloud hesitated, and then pressed his glowing hands into the blood-soaked cloth surrounding the blade.

He couldn't pull it out. Cloud knew. He couldn't. Angeal would die immediately. He'd seen these wounds before, where the weapon was the only thing stopping the man from bleeding out. But if he... He squinted, the haze in his head making it hard to think. He could close up the vessels around it. Maybe. Stop it temporarily, just enough to get the blade out and align the severed tissues. Even a fullcure couldn't do anything if the alignment was off. Yeah. He remembered hearing that. Someone taught him.

Words, fragmented thoughts rambled through his head. They yanked his attention, dashing one way and then the other. He shook his head hard, even if that made his shoulder shriek at him. Shut up shut up shut up!

His hands glowing, he pressed healing magic into it over and over. The spell beaded off, inert, like rain off a tarp. Angeal wasn't shaking anymore. He lay still, watching Cloud, his expression something open and clear the way Cloud hadn't seen for a really long time.

He didn't notice that he was talking until the litany overpowered even the noise in his ears.

"Close! Why won't you fucking  _close_!" Panic coated his voice liberally.

Angeal's hand closed over his wrist, and it squelched, warm and sticky. "Cloud." He sounded... calm. "Quit it. It's the degradation. You can't heal me."

"No!"

"You can't do anything."

"No no  _no NO_! Don't tell me what I can't—No!" Cloud cut himself off, and his head came up. "Hollander told Genesis that S cells can—"

"I said quit it," Angeal's reedy voice cut through his. "That's not what I wanted. It never was."

"Then what did you want?" Cloud said, hoarse, numbness starting at the base of his tongue and spreading down his throat.

Quietly, a slow smile spread, oozing like the blood flowing in thick rivulets. Ragged bits of cloth were starting to stick together and congeal.

"My honour."

* * *

Sephiroth was waiting for them at the heliport when they made it back, eleven hours later.

Cloud had waited for Tseng to wake up, and it was the Turk who'd arranged for a pick up. The Turk had looked at Cloud, and then said nothing.

Sephiroth barely acknowledged the MPs leading Hollander away. His eyes kept coming back to the sword clutched in Cloud's hand.

Cloud raised the Buster, flat parallel to the ground, and as he offered the sword, his mouth opened. And closed again aimlessly.

"Sorry," he settled on, eventually.

There was a hint of movement in his peripheral vision, and Sephiroth's hand fell onto the cross guard. When Cloud raised the Buster higher, though, the General pushed, gently, pressing the hilt into his grip.

Cloud looked up.

The other First was watching him. With a faint nod, Sephiroth let go of the sword.

* * *

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said, liberties with canon. But since I'm not following the plot of Crisis Core through to the end, I wanted to make it so that there seemed to be a bit of resolution in the game plot, even for the people who haven't played the game before.
> 
> So... here's hoping the next one doesn't take another year...


	15. Bridge the Barren

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They called it a vacation. Ha. But still, Cloud supposed he shouldn't have run away. It just made everything worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I REJOICE, for it has been less than a year!
> 
> No, seriously. It's actually been a really long time, but somewhere along the way, less than a year started sounding pretty reasonable... Also, I have picked up another poor hapless soul to beta this monstrosity, so the earlier chapters are getting a bit of a cleanup, too. Very exciting.
> 
> Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and settings are property of Square Enix. No profit is being sought from the writing of this fanfiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
> 
> Warnings: Violence. Canon abuse. Oh, and that guy. Yeah, that guy there is not actually an OC. I just gave him some effed up backstory to entertain myself.
> 
> Also, I want to say a huge thank you to anyone who reads this. You guys are awesome. You're what makes this worth the lack of sleep. Happy holiday of your choice!

 

 **Part 14**. Bridge the barren

  

Cloud lay on his couch, staring up at the darkness coiled across his ceiling. A can of cold beans sat at his feet. It was mostly full, and so congealed that the fork stood straight up in the gunk. It had tasted tinny, like blood that had sprayed into his mouth, so he'd given up.

He'd given up on sleeping, too, after the silence in his bedroom had gotten oppressive.

The walls of the unit creaked and settled, unused to being occupied. Cloud turned his head towards the shadowy outline of a closed door, its shape fuzzy in the mako glare. He'd almost forgotten what it was like when Evans was there. It had been loud, hadn't it?

Hoffe always went home after duty, but half the time Travers was sprawled across the couch, bitching about how they needed to get a bigger one, preferably with one of those classy lounge things attached to the end of it, and why wouldn't they give him the pay per view password. And Evans would shout from the kitchen, telling him to get lost, even if one of the beers he was twisting the cap off of was for Travers. Cloud wasn't old enough to drink. Not that it really mattered, not in Soldier, where they figured that it was all the same if you were old enough to fight, but Evans was the type to care about that sort of shit. Had been. Whatever.

Sometimes, after meetings that ran too long, Angeal would show up at the door. He'd greet them, having gotten used to the way that Evans and Travers bickered long ago, and drag Cloud out for Wutain all night takeout. Or occasionally curry.

Cloud hadn't had curry before coming to Midgar. The stuff they got under the Plate probably wasn't anything authentic, with its massive soggy peas and heady spiciness that made his nose sting and his eyes burn. In Nibelheim, they ate all the bland, heavy stuff, with lumps of fat floating in the soup that clung to the insides of their stomachs and made them feel thick and warm after, especially since the water froze in the well every night. There'd be a thin film of ice in the morning, even in the middle of summer.

He glowered at the blank ceiling. Making a small, disgusted noise in the back of his throat, Cloud swung his legs off the ridged armrest and rocked himself to his feet. He'd kept telling himself that he wouldn't do this anymore. Everytime. But here he was again, cataloguing the people he'd lost along the way like he was running his finger down some obscene mental checklist.

His boots clicked as he stepped off the thick, muffling carpet inside his quarters out onto the tiles in the hall. The door swung shut behind him with a heavy breath of air.

Unbidden, his feet took their familiar path.

He used the stairs. Partially, this was because Security would come check a moving elevator at these dead hours of the night—he knew this from experience—and a couple of them would be waiting on the landing when the elevator stopped. Then they'd recognize him, and they'd just stand there, stiff as planks and trying to avoid eye contact as he passed them by. Partially, probably, it was just easier to stop thinking while he climbed the endless spiral of steps.

An unornamented metal door stood at the top, the polished handle gleaming a slick red under the grainy glow of the box hanging from the ceiling. The red lines of its light were aligned into the word "exit".

Cloud stepped out onto the roof.

It was rainy season in Midgar again. It made the limp space indoors damp and sticky, but outside, all the moisture was getting wrung out by the rain, and the air tasted cool. Water ran in a sluggish stream down a part of the roof that sloped towards a gutter. Raindrops, the fat, heavy kind, slapped into the surface of the puddles and raised clusters of bubbles. They bobbed for a moment, transparent domes sliding over the surface of the water, and then they popped.

 _Plup. Plup plop_. The sounds ran together with the pattering of the rain.

Other bubbles took their place.

Cloud sat under a concrete overhang, where the rooftop was a bit less soaked. The rain made the night blacker, and he couldn't see the edge of the Plate. Maybe it was all the metal, all the machinery. Maybe a million people breathing the same air just kind of sucked it thin, dry of anything really organic, once it got far away enough from the stink of piss in the slums, anyway. Lifeless as the air was in Midgar after the people were done breathing it, nothing ever changed the smell of rain. Cloud let his head drop back, and he felt the chilly moisture make his skin slowly pebble.

He'd seen people die before. Lots of them. But, he supposed, he hadn't ever really... watched. He'd generally been a bit too busy trying not to die himself, one way or another. But Angeal—

He didn't sag. He didn't sigh and deflate. He just... Between one moment and the next, something that had been there all along, something invisible and only noticeable in its absence, just... went away.

Cloud didn't even believe in souls or anything. The Planet-huggers always said there was a life force or something like that, something intangible and undetectable that powers people and living things until it leaves again, and joins the rest of the Lifestream. Cloud had never worried about it. People just lived until they died, and even if there was some kind of special energy that went into the Planet or whatever, it didn't change the fact that the person was dead. Didn't make him any less dead. He'd always figured that shit just happened, and it wasn't something he could do anything about, so why bother?

He couldn't seem to stop thinking about it now, though. Not after Angeal had went from being a person to a thing, just there, right in front of him while he watched. It was worse than the pain. Watching. Worse than anything he could imagine, that impotence. And as Angeal had gone cold under his hands, some kind of solid futility had raked razor claws up the inside of his ribs before ripping out all of the nerves running down his spine until the inside of his head was nothing but a hot, white mess.

Cloud blinked furiously. He could see beads on his eyelashes, drooping downwards.

Tseng had found him sitting there like that, in front of Angeal's corpse, when he'd woken up.

Cloud stared into the misty darkness.

When his PHS buzzed, the vibrations made the case rattle against the concrete. Cloud jumped. He dug into his pocket, fingers getting tangled in the folded material. He shifted, lifting himself up off the cold ground as he struggled.

Shit. How long had he been up here?

He managed to pry the device free finally. Glancing at the number flashing on its face, he flipped it open.

"Strife here."

"Mission debrief, Cloud."

Sephiroth sounded distracted.

"Yessir. On my way."

Snapping his PHS shut again, Cloud looked up at the dull sky. It didn't look far past dawn, but the cloud cover scattered the light and coated everything with uniform grey.

He opened his mouth, and rain fell onto his tongue, feeling like little pricks of ice.

* * *

The mission docket had the President's personal seal across the envelope.

Right, he'd almost forgotten about the execs' vacation. Officially, it was some kind of corporate retreat, meant to improve relations or something. The Soldiers privately thought that the day Scarlet and Heidegger got along would be the day the President levelled the ShinRa building and turned it into a nature preserve. There'd be a petting zoo, too, with a pen for the flying bacon.

He'd  _thought_  that Rufus had looked a little too happy the last time he'd run across the guy in the lobby.

Either way, the execs would take off for a week or so every year. They usually went to Costa del Sol—there'd been a rumour going around a couple of years back that they used to go to the Gold Saucer, but the President had put the kibosh on that when one of the execs lost pretty much his entire departmental budget at the chocobo races—leaving Midgar under the care of Rufus Shinra and the military.

Cloud had gone with them a few years back, doing grunt-work and guard duty while one of the Soldiers First Class who'd been stationed at Junon organized security for the whole thing.

That had been before the war, before the Firsts had started dying, and then there'd been only the three left.

By the look of the mission package, it was Cloud's job, this time.

He came across Robertsson bellowing at a couple of Thirds in the airship hanger.

"—better get back in there and do it properly, dipshit, or it'll be  _our_  guts splashed all over the ground and they'll have to bring in the Firsts to say 'who was the fucker that couldn't handle one simple instruction?'  _Do I need to draw a picture?_ "

The Second either stopped for breath or his tirade ran out, and the hapless Soldier on the receiving end took the opportunity to scramble up the ladder at his back.

Robertsson saluted when Cloud approached, one of the more proper ones he'd seen out of the man. But then he slouched down again.

"Again with the babysitting jobs," he grumbled.

Cloud tried on a wry smile. "Heard it was big, though."

"Yeah, that eco-terrorist group the Turks have been working on all hush hush. They've finally brought Soldier in on it." Robertsson fixed him with a mismatched stare. "Heard  _you_  were getting shipped out to Costa del Sol."

Cloud shrugged. "Guard detail. The President..." He stopped.

"Is a paranoid bastard?" Robertsson finished dryly, but quietly enough to be drowned out by the hum of machinery surrounding them to any unenhanced ears.

Cloud snorted. Pressing his mouth tight, he eyed Robertsson.

A couple of weeks ago, sometime after they'd finally let him out of the infirmary again, he'd run into a whole shitload of executives, Hojo included, coming down the hall toward him, and he'd thought that that was it. He was going to end up in the glass fish tanks he'd heard the really bad cases got put into, always with a ready nozzle set into the lid, primed with the seriously noxious gases that could put down a behemoth on speed. He was going to wake up every morning to Hojo's poached-egg eyes peering in on him with that damn clipboard he never let go of clutched in a hand. He was going to end up some kind of side note pinned to the top of some file sitting in the scientist's—

But the group had passed him by. Hojo hadn't even given him a second glance, though Heidegger's eyes did linger on Cloud's ashy face until he'd passed.

"So," he started awkwardly. "Couldn't help noticing that you didn't submit that request for a psych eval."

There was a briefly puzzled look. Then, "Oh." Robertsson shrugged.

"Why?"

"Given the circumstances, it'd be a damn fool thing to do. At best, you'd have been out of commission right about when we could afford it the least." Robertsson chewed on the inside of his mouth for a moment. "Besides, you've changed."

Cloud blinked.

Robertsson flapped a hand impatiently. "I'm not the only one who noticed, you know. Your buddy Kunsel was asking questions. About whether you'd been acting weird. And McPhee said that if you were going to go ballistic on someone again, he'd rather be behind you than anywhere else."

Cloud fought back a laugh. "I bet Kunsel was surprised by that one."

Robertsson's brow wrinkled more than the shiny ridges on the side of his forehead looked like they'd allow, and Cloud swallowed a grimace. Guess he hadn't kept enough of the bitterness out of his voice.

"What?"

"Nothing." Cloud shook his head a bit.

He ignored the way the Second was eyeballing him. At least he was just "weird" now, instead of batshit insane. He could do weird. He was used to it.

"Strife!" came a shout from across the room. Hojo's voice.

Cloud winced. "Guess we're heading out."

"Us, too."

Cloud paused as he started to turn. "Be safe, yeah?"

Robertsson scowled. "I'd hope I can handle some hippies, Strife." He ended it with a grunt that could have meant anything from "but thanks anyway" to "you moron". Cloud had almost forgotten about the douchebaggery.

"Screw you, Robertsson," he said, without any real rancour.

A Third and two MPs were waiting for him near the platform for the first docking station. They ripped off perfect salutes as he approached.

"Finished loading?" Cloud said.

"Yessir," one of the MPs replied stiffly.

"Did I get that personnel list sent to my PHS?"

"Yessir."

"Get a final sound off, then. We'll take off in five."

"Yessir."

Cloud dismissed the men, and he made a face as they turned away. "Three bags full, sir," he muttered under his breath.

The Third must have heard him, because he choked on a laugh, and Cloud grinned crookedly in response.

He glanced over his shoulder as he headed towards Hojo, whose irritation was probably palpable across half the ShinRa complex. Robertsson was already gone.

* * *

Cloud considered the likelihood of successfully changing careers. He wouldn't be able to go home. They knew where his folks lived. No jobs there after the reactor got set up on the other side of the mountains, anyway.

Firsts didn't just quit. They couldn't quit. If they left, it was generally in pieces. It'd have to be some pretty drastic maiming, too, given how quickly they healed from anything that didn't start removing body parts at high speed. Actually, he didn't think any of the Soldier Ops could leave. Some kind of proprietary bullshit about their blood or something.

He supposed it could have been worse. Midgar was just hitting the dampest, slimiest part of the year, when the engine sludge mixed with the acid rain in just the right proportions to make the kind of goopy mud that ate through linoleum if it wasn't mopped up right away. And on the flight out, he'd glanced out the window of the airship, and he'd seen a knife blade of a sharp black shadow. Freezing fingers of fear had jabbed into the back of his neck, ripping his skin out in jagged layers.

He'd blinked, hard, over and over.

When the grey spots had finally cleared, fizzling out of his vision, he'd looked down again. It was just a cliff overlooking the dust-coated road to the gates, bare and black under the clouds of smog that hovered over the city. Completely empty.

He really was losing it.

But no matter how many times he told himself to cut the crap—it was just a fucking  _cliff_ , for crying out loud—he couldn't stop the weird shivers that buzzed into his bones at the memory of the stark shape. At least here, on the other side of the planet, he couldn't see it.

Irrational fears aside, he was beginning to understand why Sephiroth and the other Firsts around Midgar had made themselves scarce around this time of the year in the past. He'd always figured that they'd just wanted a chance to have Midgar to themselves without any of the top brass present to get in the way of their dicking around, but...

He looked down at the scrap of paper in his hand, ignoring the curious stares of the people around him. He hadn't had a chance to get out of uniform, and he'd never felt so out of place as in full black surrounded by a sea of colourful beachwares in the nearest general store to the ShinRa villa. He should have read it earlier, back when Tseng had passed it to him, just so he'd have had the presence of mind to torch the thing with a fire spell or two. That list had better be the President's groceries or something. If it wasn't, he really didn't want to know what the Turks would want with a pack of ribbed condoms and lube. The warming kind, apparently.

He looked up again. Now, what the fuck was an avocado?

* * *

Cloud had managed to foist off President-watching duties onto that Third who'd been part of the trio making pre-flight inspections by the fourth day. The President hadn't been happy about it, if the white patches that had appeared in the area of red between his moustache and his eyebrows had been any indication, but out of all people, Hojo had come to Cloud's rescue.

The scientist had explained that there was a small cell of Wutai sympathizers holed up in the desert nearby, and few though they were in number, their bioweaponry was fairly sophisticated, so Strife here could perhaps better serve to protect the President by eliminating the threat. Then, upon getting the only faintly hesitant approval, Hojo had turned to Cloud and continued, drily telling Cloud that if he could see his way clear to retrieving one or two of the bioweapon samples without smashing them to bits in the process, wouldn't that be just lovely.

Either way, old man Shinra was on the beach again that day, and Cloud wasn't. He'd borrowed one of the company trucks just about when dawn was breaking, and he'd driven until he was hours away.

He'd spent the morning happily smashing the Wutai machinery Hojo had mentioned to bits, leaving a trail of glittering shrapnel littering the sand behind him. The Gold Saucer sat, gaudy and squat, off in the distance towards the centre of the desert, and seemed almost incandescent with heat. It probably was. He wasn't sure how much power it took to run the park, but he was fairly certain the place was one of ShinRa's biggest accounts. He avoided it. It was unlikely that any covert Wutai operations would set up shop near the biggest amusement park on the planet, anyway.

He'd covered a good chunk of the desert, he figured, and had probably flushed most of the sentry machines out by the time clumps of brittle grass were starting to dot the sand dunes around him.

Then, a flash of blue caught his eye, bright against the dullness of the heat-baked landscape mirrored by the dullness of the heat-baked sky. He stopped. It had been somewhere back in the mounds of sand, further from the edge of the desert. A gust of wind kicked up, tossing eye-watering funnels of dust into the air. Before he could head towards the spot of colour, though, Cloud stiffened, hand coming up to the solid hilt of the Buster. There had been movement. He'd know it anywhere, sandstorm or not. The low slink of a predator.

The Buster sword was a reassuring weight in his hand. He peered around, squinting against the sandpapery rasp of the wind.

There. Coyotes.

They were ignoring him, he realized. The animals were hunched in the sand, muzzles trained in the direction he'd seen that spot of blue. They'd been drawn by the faint metallic smell in the air that Cloud had dismissed as dank groundwater under the earth earlier. It was becoming increasingly more familiar, though, that smell.

Cloud tightened his grip on his sword and prepared to jump.

Yeah, it was blood.

* * *

Cloud eyed the Third huddled on the ground. A ragged gash across the man's shin oozed fitfully. Average build, blond hair, bewildered look on his face. His uniform was still bright blue, even with all the dirt smeared across it.

He'd found the guy after chasing off the coyotes—he'd only killed one of them—and the Third had jumped visibly, reached for the battered longsword leaning at his side, gotten a good look at him, and then stopped and just stared. Then, he'd struggled to try to get to his feet while the sand kept shifting under him and throwing him off balance, and Cloud had had to push the Third down forcefully so that he'd stop kicking sand into his wound.

Cloud scanned the horizon. The area looked pretty deserted, and he'd left the truck a long way back. He hadn't been in any hurry to get back to old man Shinra. But the gash looked pretty deep. He thought he could see hints of white in the paste of mud and blood edging the cut, probably bone or tendon or something. The guy more likely than not couldn't walk to the truck, and Cloud wasn't sure he could defend the both of them if they got attacked by something like that big metal spider he'd fought back in Banora again.

"Got a heal?"

The Third thought for a second, and he nodded at his sword. "Yessir."

Cloud found a Cura slotted into the weapon's hilt. It looked like it had been barely touched.

Magic materia gained power with every use, as if parts of the crystal were dormant upon generation, and each time its spells were used, the energy drawn into the crystal would seep in and activate the silent parts of the materia. Then, more and more of the mass became available to focus the energy, making the spell stronger. Cloud was pretty sure he'd heard someone mention that testing at the materia facility that had shown something about the vibrations in the core of the materia increasing. It would always plateau, though, before the entire materia became active. They called it "mastered", then, but once, in a weirdly sharing mood, Sephiroth had speculated out loud that he thought there was another level of power beyond the plateau. Some kind of limit break that could draw monstrous amounts of power from the things. That, or, the General had conceded, he'd overload the thing and blow half the plate up.

As materia approached higher levels of power, Cloud had noticed, it would feel lighter. Warmer, sometimes.

"Why didn't you heal yourself before it got this bad?" Cloud asked. Given how dull and heavy this materia felt, though...

The Third made a pained face. "I'm... not good with magic, sir. Every time I try, it just kind of fizzes out on me."

Cloud was jiggling the water bottle he had strapped to his belt. "I'll have to wash it before trying to close it up, or you'll end up with sand fused into your skin."

"Sorry, sir. I thought I saw this rock overhang, so I figured I'd take shelter under it, but then when I got to it, it turned out to be odd black sand that just collapsed when I touched it, and—"

The Third talked a lot. Cloud had already found out that the guy had only been a part of Soldier for a couple of months, had been stationed in Junon, and was a bit disappointed that he'd missed the war, especially since his brother had been right at the front lines near the end.

Cloud had to pry apart the sludge-caked flaps of skin to run water through the gash, and at the sick sucking noises, the Third shuddered, the cartilage in his neck standing out distinctly as he tensed, but he kept talking, even if it was a bit more breathless than before.

"—my brother wasn't great with materia, either. He'd keep breaking the channelling bracers, too."

Dimly, Cloud realized, somewhere in the back of his head as he pinched the gash together to try to stem the fresh flow of blood now that the mud plaster had been washed away, that the Third was doing it to distract himself, because that had to hurt.

The materia resisted a bit when he started pressing energy into it, but he forced the conduit open. As he watched, doubled glows started to drip out from under his hands, one on the Third's leg, and the other on the little green sphere.

"—first time I've taken a solo mission in enemy territory, too. I'm supposed to retrieve a data disc the Wutai stole from the Junon base, but the bastards have got their base trapped up like a goddamn diamond factory or something—"

Actually, the more the Third talked, the more familiar he sounded. It was the weird way he'd end his sentences, raising the pitch just a bit at the end to make everything sound vaguely like some kind of self-mockery, but not enough to screw around with the meaning and make it a question. And, Cloud realized, he'd heard someone else talk like that before. It had been a long time ago.

"Your brother," Cloud interrupted.

The Third gave him a puzzled look.

Cloud shrugged crookedly. He wasn't even sure where this was coming from, but... he had to know.

"Was his—" He stopped, and tried again. "Is your name Jordon?"

The Third's eyes widened. "Yeah," he said finally. "He, uh, died a while ago. On a raid on some base in Wutai."

Cloud focused on the spot where the cut had been. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting. Or how he'd been expecting to feel when he found out. Jordon had never mentioned a brother. Then again, Soldiers spent more time with other ShinRa employees than at home, even if they didn't really notice it. It was kind of hard, being surrounded by people who should be closer to you than anyone else, and realizing that you were just plain different. He wasn't sure how this whole thing worked, anyway. He'd been responsible for Jordon. So he owed Jordon's brother. Something. Did the two concepts even connect? Did Jordon's brother  _know_?

The flesh had knit back together. According to the Third, it had been some barbed wire buried in the sand. There was barely anything there anymore, and even then only because he was looking for it. Just the shininess of new skin.

"Sir? Did you know my brother?"

Cloud sat back abruptly, tossing the materia back to the Third. As the man fumbled with it, Cloud stood up, shaking some of the grit from his knees. His hands weren't shaking. No, he was pretty sure they weren't anymore.

"Where's this base you were talking about?"

* * *

Jordon's brother hadn't had nearly enough training to handle the level of hostility that came charging them as soon as the idiot tripped another trap: an alarm this time. Cloud shoved the guy—Phil, he'd discovered; he couldn't keep thinking of him as Jordon's brother—out of the way when he nearly got gutted from behind while trying to swat down a couple of attack drones buzzing at him. The Third hadn't been up against multiple opponents before. That much was obvious.

There was only one human who'd come running at the sound of the alarm. Cloud caught the curved sword the guard was wielding against the flat of his, and he stepped in so that the man couldn't pull free without falling over backwards. This meant that the Buster was trapped, too, but Cloud only twisted, driving his elbow into the man's gut. Then, as the other man doubled over and the pressure eased, Cloud swung upwards, his sword biting through armour and flesh alike. He kept spinning, shearing cleanly through another bot that was trying to rush him from the side. Bits of metal clanked to the ground just as the rebel slumped over.

He wasn't sure if he was doing this because of some sense of obligation. Or maybe if he thought somewhere in the black pit of his head that this was his chance to make up for how fucking completely he'd failed Jordon. He didn't want it to be. It wasn't fair. It'd be like he was using the new Third, and damned if he needed that extra layer of guilt to add onto the nice thick wad he'd already had going.

When he'd finally cleared the mob of sentry drones, Cloud glanced over at the Third.

He got a grimace in return. "Sorry, sir."

"Just..." Cloud shut his mouth. He exhaled loudly and started again. "Watch where you're going next time."

He picked his way over the debris on the floor. As bases went, this one was pretty damn run down. There'd been a wire fence, rusted and sagging, and one snapped link had grown into a hole big enough to fit a moderate sized kid over years of neglect. Cloud had ripped the gap open enough to let in the two of them, and the metal had parted like a curtain. Inside, the open-air compound was set on badly packed earth. Sand-coloured huts leaned drunkenly, dotting the space, but there was a concrete box of a building sitting right in the centre of the base. If they were going to find anything, Cloud figured, it had to be in there.

"What's on this disc you're looking for, anyway?"

"HQ didn't give me all of the details," Phil said, "but it had to do with arms development. There was a freight shipment that vanished off the coast of Mideel last week, and now the production plans for the cargo got stolen."

"Mideel?" Cloud frowned. "And you think this is related?"

"Couldn't say, sir. My CO just told me to retrieve the disc."

The concrete building had a nondescript square door set in its corner. There was a padlock, one of the flimsy, cheap ones that got sold in hardware stores all over the place, and it held up about as well as a straw under a good yank. The door swung open with an agonized creak, flakes of rust crumbling away and spiralling down towards the earth.

The Soldiers stopped, peering into the opening. Against the backdrop of glittering sand, it looked like a square of solid black.

"Guess they couldn't pay the power bill," Phil muttered from behind Cloud.

Cloud tried to suppress the snort. "Come on. Short and sweet. We get your disc and get out."

"Yessir."

* * *

In the darkness, the air was dry, but cold. And utterly still.

Cloud crept down the hallway. It turned a few times, and once the door had vanished behind him, the lack of light was a solid, dense thing. The ceiling wasn't too high, and it looked even closer under the gritty mako shine.

He sucked absently at the gash over the back of his wrist, where his glove just ended. They'd gotten jumped by some more of the guard bots a hall or two back, and one of them had sliced into his skin with some kind of spinning blade fixed to its underbelly. Served him right for trying to block with the wrong hand.

At least he'd only mildly electrocuted himself smashing the machine's circuitry.

Cloud spat. The cut was still oozing a bit, given the hint of coppery taste on his tongue.

There wasn't any noise.

Cloud figured he was usually okay with that. He didn't talk much. Never had. It was one of those things his mother had nagged him endlessly about: his social skills, or lack thereof. He appreciated people who didn't talk much. Or the ones that knew he was listening, and were fine with it. Travers had been like that. Travers had been one of those weirdly perceptive people who acted like complete dumbasses until someone took that impression for granted and all of a sudden something he'd said or done fucking ages ago would come back and bite him on the ass. Kind of like Za—

... who?

Wait.

No, wait.

The thought slipped away like water between his fingers, no matter how hard he scrabbled to hold onto it.

He couldn't remember.

Cold hands clenched around his gut, and he could feel sweat starting to gather at his nape.

He couldn't  _remember_.

It was like trying to explain a dream, and the harder he tried to recall details, the fuzzier they became. But he wasn't sleeping. Hadn't just woken up. He'd been thinking, and it was something important—something he should know—and he  _couldn't remember_.

What the fuck was  _wrong_  with him?

"Sir?"

Cloud whipped around, lightheaded. Fear fogged his eyes, clogged his nostrils. Instinctively, he reached for his sword. To lash out. To fight. Anything. Black and white spots flashed in the edges of his vision, stinging at his retinas. It hurt. His breath hurt. It was sticking in his throat, like his diaphragm was glued to his lungs and each breath was ripping the sacks to shreds, popping each little pocket of air like a stomped grape, and blood was gushing into the spaces were air was supposed to run—

It was the startled noise that Jordon's brother let out as he flinched that made Cloud freeze.

Shit.

What was he doing?

The Third's eyes were wide and gleaming with the sheen of mako. He stared. Cloud stared back.

What?

After a moment, Cloud straightened, dropping his hand and shoving it deep into his pocket. His knuckles creaked.

Phil was still tense, his eyes darting around the blackness. "Did you see something, sir?"

Oh hell. Cloud hunched his shoulders. "Sorry," he muttered. "Got startled."

He'd stopped walking earlier, he realized belatedly. He'd... Cloud frowned. He remembered the stark terror that had engulfed him, but it was a distant thing, a weird lump of discomfort that settled under his stomach. He couldn't remember why he'd been afraid. It'd been... something.

And now the memory of the fear itself was melting away, evaporating like mist under a blowtorch sun. It was detached, as if it had happened to someone else.

Had this happened before, too?

Could he just not remember?

Huh?

_Remember what?_

The question was just a whisper in the pit of his mind.

Cloud coughed sheepishly, bringing a hand up to the back of his head and digging his fingers into his hair. It was matted and tangled with desert sand. Nasty. "Guess I must have thought I heard something," he said.

Phil still looked kind of wary, but he nodded as if in acceptance of the excuse.

Some stray thought waved to get Cloud's attention, bringing with it a twinge of unease, but he brushed it aside. The silence  _was_  kind of overbearing. "This place didn't look this big from the outside," he said, glancing around. "But the hall's gotta end somewhere, right?"

He caught the Third giving him an odd look, brief enough to be imagined, but the guy nodded again.

"How did you and your brother both end up in Soldier, anyway?"

He was just talking to fill the gaps now. Well, he did that sometimes. His parents had called him a monkey for a good while when he was a kid. Chatters. Climbs trees. Monkey.

Cloud blinked, shaking his head a bit. There it was again, that dissonance. Freaky shit.

"Oh," Phil said. He shrugged. "We were both street rats. Lots of us in the slums, you know?"

"You come from Midgar, then?" Cloud said, scanning the still darkness as he resumed walking.

"Yessir. Clay—uh, my brother—joined first. He figured it was a way out from under the plate, and it was better than the other occupations available to people down there. And then I followed him because I wasn't much for whoring myself out, either." The Third stumbled on his words, then. "Uh, I mean... Shit. Sorry, sir."

Cloud had turned sharply. "You mean  _Jordon_ —"

Phil shook his head. "No. No, Clay never... I mean, he considered it. I was younger by a few years, and, well... But no, he signed up for ShinRa." The Third made a short sound, somewhere between a laugh and a cough. "I don't remember our parents. My brother said he didn't remember them either, but I figured he was probably just saying that. He didn't want to tell me how they didn't want us, I guess." Phil smiled faintly. "He made sure I could read, though. He must have learned some of it from our parents, and then the rest he picked up at ShinRa."

"I thought ShinRa had public schooling programs in place." It had been on the pamphlet about Midgar the recruitment drive had been handing out. ShinRa cares! Education first! Something like that.

"We stopped going when I was really young. There was this teacher..." Phil broke off. Then he laughed, a coarse chuckle. "He got caught by one of the kids' dads, last I heard. Got shot in the face."

Cloud was quiet for a while. "Sorry," he said finally.

The Third laughed again. "What for, sir?"

Cloud thought about Jordon, buried under a couple of hundred tons of rock, thousands of miles from home. He didn't say anything.

* * *

They found a cluttered office buried in the back of the building. The data disc gleamed, the only thing without a generous coating of dust. The ShinRa logo was a lurid red in the flickering glow coming from the ancient monitor sitting on the desk along the wall.

Well, it was nice of the bastards to leave it lying out for them like that.

As Cloud handed the Third the disc, something in his periphery caught his attention.

There was a stick plugged into one of the ports on the front of the computer. Cloud frowned, and he tried the keyboard. The machine was on and fully responsive. He navigated to the folders kept on the data stick, but when he tried at access it, warning blips flashed across the screen and the computer made a shrill shriek. Encrypted. The shrieking was taken up by a speaker hidden up in the shadows shrouding a corner of the ceiling. Oh, and apparently hooked up to an alarm.

Fantastic.

There was a whupping sound outside the office, almost like a helicopter's blades as they spun fast enough to make the air whine.

Cloud pocketed the data stick as the noise got louder, drowning out the siren wail.

Then, the door to the office, as well as its frame and a good chunk of the wall surrounding it, burst into a hail of splinters, and there was a robot hovering in the air, whipping sawdust into fountain-like sprays around its spinning blades. It was about the size of a truck, and it looked like a couple of tank turrets had been soldered together and then kitted with a pair of long knives that rotated at each turret base and kept it afloat. What faint light was present in the room glinted malevolently off the whirling edges.

There was a telescopic lens on top of the robot. It spun around, landing on the two Soldiers and contracting as it focused up and down.

When it charged at them, Cloud shoved Jordon's brother to a side as he dove for cover.

Clanking, the thing ground to a halt when its blades got caught in what must have been some hidden support behind the fibreboard panelling lining the small room. Papers got sucked up into the spinners, shredding and billowing out like some half-hearted attempt to fake snow.

The lens fixed to the top of the robot spun wildly, first towards Cloud, then Phil, and then back to Cloud again, as if it couldn't make up its electronic mind about which target to go after first.

Cloud fingered the materia set into the hilt of the Buster. They were warm, glowing with energy. His hand settled on the Thundara.

"Hey," he called. "Phil."

"Yeah."

"I'm gonna start throwing magic at it. You take your sword, go behind it, and get to breaking some important bits."

"Got it, sir."

* * *

With a mechanical roar, the machine ripped free of the wall. As it bore down on Cloud, he gripped his sword and raised his other arm as the materia under his hand flashed.

Cloud rolled out of the high bunk he'd borrowed for the night. He hit the ground with a jarring thud that made his teeth rattle in his skull, his knees locked, and he pitched forward.

Something clattered to the ground as he made a grab for the table bolted to the wall of the Junon barracks. He caught himself and, blinking his crusty eyes, peered around blearily.

He was alone. A standard issue canteen was rolling to a stop by the corner of the room, sloshing a bit as it spun.

He wasn't sure what had woken him. A sound? Some kind of premonition?

He'd ended up at Junon with Jordon's brother. He'd had to get the encrypted files on the data stick he'd swiped from the Wutai hideout to the ShinRa Tech department, and Junon had been the closest base. The fact that he'd be able to avoid the execs holed up across the sea and probably drinking themselves into a stupor for the night had helped.

Something was off. Cloud dragged himself to his feet.

He'd heard that Hollander had been taken to Junon for some interrogation or other, although why it had to be Junon wasn't something he could really speculate on. Maybe there were more Turks stationed there. He'd seen plenty of the dark suits running around on his way in.

There'd been a fuss when he'd shown up. They hadn't been expecting him or the information he'd come armed with, and so he'd sparked some kind of long and fruitless relay up the chain of command about who he could report to that had finally resolved when a couple of Turks had intervened and said he could damn well call Midgar and arrange for the files to be transferred himself.

When the clanging of alarms went off, half a second later, Cloud was already reaching for his sword.

* * *

They were wearing Wutai uniforms.

Cloud caught a downward hack towards his head on the base of the Buster sword. The Wutai used weirdly curved blades that threw his balance to shit when they shifted as he tried to shove off and away. He jumped backward to avoid a knee to the gut.

The green of their uniforms stood out against the monotone grey of the concrete that made up the Junon complex. The shadows were wrong, though.

Junon sat at the edge of the smaller ocean separating two of the three major continent masses. Midgar was behind it, sitting farther north on the other side of the Mythril mountain ranges. The military base at Junon faced the ocean, aiming most of its firepower, including a massive mako cannon that had been the butt of dick jokes amongst the men for about as long as Cloud could remember, out over the water. Given how long the thing took to fire, Cloud was pretty sure ShinRa had built it for exactly the reason all the soldiers speculated. Not as a weapon, really—not an effective one—but as a gigantic "fuck you" to the rest of the world. It had most of the world in its sights, anyway. Across the water, the way the cannon was facing, was the Gold Saucer's desert with both Corel and Costa del Sol off on its edges. Then, Nibelheim, where he'd lived when he'd once thought the Nibel mountains were the edge of the world. And farther to the west of even that, Wutai.

Though they were on the water, Junon base was built like a stack of concrete and steel boxes with about as many windows as could be expected in a maximum security prison. The only way to reliably get a view of the ocean was to climb up onto the mako cannon.

Inside, the light came from artificial sources. Long fluorescent bulbs lined the ceiling at precisely the right intervals to blur out the maximum of shadows into wisps of grey so that everything stood stark and cut-out against the gleaming floors in ways that played hell with depth perception.

Cloud had run into clumps of Wutai soldiers immediately upon leaving the barracks. They had the same little attack drones he'd encountered in the desert with them, meaning that, in hindsight, he probably should have given more thought to why the desert base had been empty and where they'd all gone. Well. There was a reason he let the brass do the thinking for him.

He disarmed another soldier by knocking his weapon out of his hand with brute force, and, flipping the Buster in his grip, swiped forward, across at neck height. There was barely any resistance.

There were a lot of them, though, more than would be warranted by a retrieval mission of whatever it had been that he'd stolen. This raid was for something else. Something bigger.

When his PHS buzzed, he was alone except for the odd static spasms of a robot battery that hadn't quite run down yet. He wiped his hand against his uniform leg, but it still squished unpleasantly when he pulled out the device. Ignoring the red streak he left against the glass covering the front panel, he flipped it open.

"Strife."

"Are you alright?"

Cloud glanced around at the narrow hallway that joined the barracks to the office floors. There was a spray of blood on one of the walls, from the force of his swing. It had started to run, but the thin streaks hadn't gotten far before they had congealed. He didn't look down. He knew if he did that he'd see black hair, white wings, and—he didn't look.

"Yeah." He glanced at the name on the call screen again just to be sure, but it hadn't changed. He cleared his throat. "Yes, thanks, Tseng."

"When I got called in to Junon, Cissnei told me that you had arrived earlier in the day. The base is under attack by Wutai forces."

Cloud didn't look at the bodies again. "Yeah. I know. I've run into some of them. What do you need me to do? A steam clean?" That was jargon for stamping them all out. Sometimes, though, Cloud privately thought ShinRa had missed the mark on some of the euphemisms they used for the sake of delicacy. Some of them really didn't sound better at all.

"No, we'll take care of the Wutai." There was the briefest hesitation. "Hollander has escaped."

"Oh."  _Ah_. "You want me to find him?"

"Yes, Strife."

"Discreetly."

Tseng ignored the last comment. "Our information indicates that he'd been approached by Wutai troops in the past, when he was working with Genesis in Modeoheim. They wanted him to complete their research on Soldier reproduction. At the time, he'd refused. This time..."

"You're worried he'll take the out?"

"Precisely." Tseng's voice hardened. "Do not let Hollander leave with the Wutai, Strife." He paused again. "At all costs."

At that moment, Cloud could feel the sticky residue clinging to his hands acutely. It was turning cold. "Understood."

* * *

He really didn't have much of an idea where to find Hollander. Tseng hadn't had any further intel for him, and so he'd resorted to tracing his way to the holding room that Hollander had been kept in and wandering around in hopes of picking up a trail. That floor was riddled with conference rooms, each with glass doors and far too much furniture to hide behind.

Cloud backed out of another room after sticking his head in and scanning the shadows. He'd been walking around blindly for a while now. Shutting the door behind him, he heard a voice.

"Hey!"

He looked around.

"You! Come here!"

There was a man in one of those white lab coats he'd come to thoroughly hate waving at him from down the hallway.

"You're a Soldier, correct?" the man said as he approached. He was in his thirties, Cloud guessed. Dark-haired, thinner than Hollander, but not by that much. He didn't wait for Cloud to answer. "I've been left in charge of the Junon laboratory while Professor Hojo is away, and it's come to my attention that certain lapses in security appear to have occurred."

"Okay..." Cloud eyed the scientist.

"There are Wutai insurgents attacking the base, aren't there? There have been alerts going off for the better part of the past half hour, and the situation has only devolved since then."

"Right," Cloud said abruptly. "But what is it that you actually want me to do?"

The scientist gave him a look that seemed to question the worth of his existence. "Come into the lab. This is sensitive information."

The man turned around and walked away.

It took another few breaths for the urge to snap both the man's legs to pass, but then Cloud exhaled slowly, and he followed.

They'd stepped through the sliding doors and let them slither shut before the scientist nodded at the mess of racks on the workbench closest to the door. "I came up here to pack up the most irreplaceable components of our work here to transfer to a safer location."

Was that a roundabout way of asking for an escort?

"But then, when I was assembling the data, I discovered that a sample was missing."

Cloud's eyes narrowed instantly. After what Tseng had said about the Wutai reproducing Soldiers, this could be fanfuckingtastically bad. "What sample?"

He got a pudgy hand waved at him in return. "Nothing to concern yourself over. But it's rather odd that the biometric sensor didn't trigger. It should have picked up on any unauthorized presence in the vicinity." He glanced at Cloud's blank face and the side of his mouth twitched. "Simply a security feature we've implemented. Might be too... complex to explain to you." He paused, frowning at Cloud. "What are you doing?"

Cloud had turned around, facing the lab doors. In his ear, the tinny canned voice continued rattling off its report. "Thank you, soldier," he said, when it wound down.

"We'll continue on this end, sir." The line cut off.

Cloud snapped his PHS shut again. "Hollander was sighted in the area. Did you happen to remove him from the authorized personnel list?"

The assistant's eyes widened. "Hollander? Oh. Yes. That is—"

"No, then."

"At HQ, yes, but not here... Did you just—"

"I asked the guards," Cloud said, solemnly. "They're a security feature I implemented."

"You had prior knowledge that Hollander would escape?" the scientist said sharply.

 _Yes._  "No." Only if Tseng telling him twenty minutes ago counted. "It's standard protocol to secure potentially sensitive locations nearby when the execs travel." He shrugged as the man stared. "It might be too... complex to explain to you."

Ignoring the glare levelled at him, Cloud nodded at the lab. "Got everything you need?"

"What?"

"I'll provide an escort to get you and your materials to somewhere safe, but if Hollander's on the run with something important, I'm going to need to go after him." He turned to the scientist's slowly reddening face. "How long ago did you discover this sample missing?"

There was only a slight hesitation as the man glanced over the black of his uniform again. "Not more than five minutes," he finally said, tone a bit subdued.

"He shouldn't have gotten far." Cloud straightened up. "The news of Hollander's escape is highly classified, though, and I'm going to need you to keep your silence on this matter. We wouldn't want anyone to panic."

"No, of course—"

"Especially if it gets out that he was able to just walk into a highly sophisticated laboratory."

The man's face went an ashy grey at this, and Cloud tried his best to hide his grin.

* * *

On the bright side, Hollander had been easy enough to spot once Cloud had left Hojo's assistant silently contemplating his life expectancy, or at least job security in the company, once Hojo found out what had happened back in the lab. ShinRa had decided to outfit the conference floor with big tinted windows all along the parade route that ran through Junon city and ended at the docks, and Cloud had happened to glance down at street level. Hollander was stumbling as he ran. He looked like he was shaking as he gasped for breath.

On the shitty side, the windows didn't open.

Sending out a general apology under his breath, Cloud smashed out one of the huge panes of glass with the hilt of the Buster. The windows sloped, and they were made with that same laminated, tempered glass that ShinRa usually used on all their building fronts these days. Most of the glass fell inward in a cascade of clinking pellets, but Cloud still winced when some of it tumbled down towards the street. Immediately, wind started to whistle against the gap in the panel, and the other panes of the window rattled in concert. He stuck his head out into open air. No one had been underneath, at least. Not at this time of the night.

He scraped out another couple of pellets from the frame, braced his hand against it, and jumped.

He must have made too much noise hitting the ground three stories below and collapsing into a roll, because Hollander nearly tripped over his feet swinging around to look at him. Then, he'd made a high sharp noise, spun, and started running faster.

Cloud windmilled his arms as he got his feet under him. While he watched, the scientist vanished into an underpass.

Then, there was a blast of air that seemed to make the entire street shudder. It hit him hard, a concussive blow that made his knees buckle from behind, and Cloud staggered forward, one hand ripping his sword from its sheath as he whirled around. The streetlights gleamed toxic orange off of a metallic shell looming high over his head, and the blades whipping around under the turrets were nothing but bright blurs.

Another spinner robot, Cloud realized. Exactly like the one he'd found in the desert base.

With a humming roar, the machine charged at him, tilting as it used its propellers to give it a burst of speed. Cloud jumped up, kicking off the side of the machine to put some distance between them. At least here, he thought gratefully, he had room to manoeuvre.

It started to change direction, first the articulated lens swinging around to focus on him, and then the rumbling of gears as the blades started to shift.

Shit, it was coming again.

Cloud sprang forward, jamming the tip of his sword into the robot's base, where the blades were whirling like particularly ecstatic dervishes. There was a horrible grinding sound, and he knew that he wasn't going to get out of this without a couple of new chips on his blade. He twisted. Nothing happened at first, the Buster locking against the straining robot and refusing to budge, but then there was a squeal of tortured metal, and something gave, slingshotting off over his shoulder close enough that he felt the wind of its passage over the side of his neck. Off balance, the robot's ribbed hide rammed into him full force and knocked him into a wild tumble.

Disoriented, trying not to gag as his lungs did their best to re-inflate themselves, Cloud lurched to catch his balance. The robot was pitching heavily, managing a slow pirouette. Its lens turned a full revolution before finding and focusing on Cloud. Along with about six machine gun muzzles that sprouted along its turrets.

Cloud raised his sword again, ignoring the screaming heat in his shoulder and the fact that half of his body was one fused lump of pain, and in the corner of his eye, he could see orange light lick up the length of the blade like greedy fire. Crippled with the loss of one set of its propellers, the robot was drifting sideways, and the noses of the guns dipped and weaved.

And Cloud charged.

The machine fired at him, and little chunks of asphalt shrapnel chipped up from the road, but he'd already jumped up high. Buster in a two-handed grip, he slashed downward while his sword blazed bright in his grasp, using his fall to his advantage. Metal sheared through metal. The rasp was worse than nails on chalkboard.

The robot jerked and seemed to buck, like it was trying to throw him off, and Cloud nearly lost his grip on his sword. He threw his weight forward. The cracked chassis covered nothing but darkness inside, though he could see spitting arcs of light shooting through the metal. Hissing through tightly gritted teeth, he thrust his free hand forward, his glove crackling with thunder magic that snapped and bit at his fingers.

With a popping sound as his only warning, the world blew up in his face.

Cloud picked himself back up out of the gravel. Shaking his head, he propped himself first up onto his hands and knees, and then tried to stand. Bright lights were flashing in his eyes, his ears felt like they were oozing the entire contents of his head, and he nearly slammed his face back into the ground.

He tried again, pushing himself onto his heels. He wobbled, but his legs held, and he started to limp forward toward the underpass down which he'd last seen Hollander disappear. Around him, behind him, he could hear the plinks of baked rock and metal as they started to cool.

There was a Third sitting against the base of the tunnel's wall. The safety lights gave the streaks of blood under him an oily sheen.

Cloud swallowed. His mouth opened, but nothing came out. Jordon had been like that. And McCaul. Lying still, blood staining the ground underneath, and—

He moved.

"Phil?" Cloud said quickly.

He got a pained grunt in return as the Third tried to shift and pull himself up higher. "Sonuvabitch shot me."

Cloud trotted closer carefully. The man's uniform leg was dark with blood. "Who did? Hollander?"

A shake. "Not sure who he was. White coat, greying hair."

"Hollander. You probably hadn't met him before."

"Hell of a way to say hello, then."

"Did he keep going down the tunnel?"

"Yeah, that way." Phil waved down the road. It was, from what Cloud could remember, the only road out of town. It came out of the tunnel along a cliff, some forty yards of sheer drop to the waterfront below.

Cloud peered down the way the Third had indicated. He could barely make out the other end, where streetlights were twinkling like so many yellow constellations. He couldn't let Hollander get away, especially with the Wutai still around. But— "What about you? Are you going to be alright?"

"No. Yeah," Phil said raggedly, scowled, and seemed to collect his self. "No, I'm fine, sir. I already radioed for help, and it's not even bleeding that much."

"You sure?"

"Are you chasing him? 'Cause I saw a couple of guys run after him, and I'm not sure, but they didn't look like ShinRa people to me."

"Fuck," Cloud rasped, starting to run again.

* * *

When he caught up to Hollander, the man was alone. They'd made it to the outskirts of town, where the buildings were starting to look like shanties, barely holding up in the wind that blew in off the sea. Cloud slowed his pace, first to a walk, and then he hesitated. The scientist hadn't moved from where he stood, even though he was pretty sure the man had known he was coming. Almost like he was... waiting.

"Hollander," Cloud called.

Then he was ducking as the scientist whirled around to hurl something at him. It was black, and it clanged as it hit a series of jagged outcrops, bouncing its way down the cliff at the edge of the road. Cloud glanced down, but he couldn't see anything anymore, not in the darkness. And Hollander. Cloud looked up again. Hollander was just standing there, staring at him.

"I'm taking you back to the base," Cloud said. He inched forward, eyes flicking to the scientist's empty hands. That must have been his handgun that he'd thrown. "Are you going to come peacefully, or," he fumbled for words, and settled on, "are we gonna have to do this the hard way?" He winced, but the scientist didn't seem to register the cop show dialogue.

Hollander moved, then, just a small shake of his head as he took a step backward.

Cloud was finally close enough to see. The scientist's white coat, which had looked so bright while he'd been chasing after it, was covered with sweat and dirt, big patches of grease rising up the sleeves and down the front. His eyes were bloodshot and wide, a crazed light behind them.

"I can't go back there," was the mumbled reply.

"You're not exactly going to get a choice there," Cloud said, but there wasn't any real heat to his tone.

"You don't get it. They're not going to let me set things right." Hollander's voice took on a strange whine. "I have to set things right."

"Set things right how?"

The scientist suddenly waved his arms, agitated, and Cloud repressed the urge to fall back. "The children. Don't you see? For the children. I can't let them end this way."

Cloud watched Hollander with steady eyes. Shit. He'd lost it. He'd actually lost it. The man was still ranting.

"I can remake them, you know? I have enough of them leftover. I just need a suitable host, and an embryo to alter, and they can be born again. And I'd do it right, this time. There wouldn't be any of that degradation. I know what I did wrong."

It dawned on Cloud, with mounting horror, that the man was talking about  _remaking_  Angeal and Genesis. He wanted to clone them. Make another Gillian Hewley.

"I owe them that much. A second chance. I can do it, you know. But ShinRa won't let me. I know this. They'll just lock me away, let me do small procedures if I'm lucky, but always, always—" The scientist's voice broke then. "They'll watch me. They won't let me give them another chance." He looked at Cloud then, raising his palms like some kind of parody of a prayer. "Don't you think they deserve it?"

But Cloud... Cloud couldn't remember what their voices sounded like anymore. He couldn't remember exactly what they'd looked like before the degradation had started eating away at them. There was just a sense of redness, of a moulting sky, and the bitter smile on Angeal's face. He shook his head, taking a step forward and reaching out towards Hollander.

The man backpedalled with a cry of fear, coming up against the edge of the cliff.

Cloud froze in his tracks.

Hollander was teetering, the heel of one foot dangling off the side. Bits of loose dirt crumbled, clattering and clicking as they rolled down the rock face.

"Okay," Cloud said, quick and low. "Okay. Don't move, alright?"

"But you'll make me go back there." The sentence was a plaintive wail, the insanity slipping through every crack in the words. "I can't remake them if I go back there." More debris tumbled down the cliff.

"You don't know that," Cloud said desperately, trying to find a way to move forward without Hollander noticing. "They want Angeal and Gene—"

"My children!" came the loud interruption.

"Right, your children," Cloud agreed hurriedly. "They want them back just as much as you do. I want them back. Angeal was my friend, you know. Probably my best friend." He crept forward, keeping his steps small enough to be as imperceptible as possible. "If you told them that you had some way of bringing them back, then who knows? They'll probably be happy to let you do it."

"Don't lie to me!"

It was the company, Cloud decided. Everyone involved with ShinRa ended up crazy as all hell, one way or another. "Why would I lie to you?"

"Don't lie," Hollander repeated, mumbling, as if to his self. "Genesis hates it when you lie." He swayed, as if hit by a gust of wind. Then, every detail in crystallized slowness in Cloud's wide eyes, the scientist's foot slipped, and he started to fall backward.

"Hollander!" Cloud surged forward, reaching out to snatch at the man's clothes. There was the sensation of air sliding through his fingers.

He missed.

The edges of his long—it had been white once—jacket fluttering, almost like wings, Hollander plunged over the edge.

Cloud stared at the empty space where the scientist had been, but he didn't see the crumbling edge of the cliff or the orange play of floodlights on the underside of low clouds. All he saw was, as the man started to tilt backward and the maw of open space gaped around his shoulders, that tiny smile, and that sudden, complete, clarity in his eyes.

* * *

TBC


	16. Counter Crescendo Crunch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sephiroth didn't ask. So Cloud didn't lie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on a fucking roll. I WILL finish this damn thing.
> 
> Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and settings are the property of Square Enix. No profit is sought by the writing of this fanfiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
> 
> Warnings: Unbeta'd. Violence. Crazy angst. Lots of violence. Before Crisis spoilers.

 

 

**Part 15.**  Counter crescendo crunch

 

 

The sky was starting to turn that shade of faded half-light that meant the sun was nudging at the horizon. There weren't that many people out. Weird, that, given the piles of twisted robot scraps piled on the streets still, and how much noise they must have made first by destroying the damn things and second by collecting the pieces left over. Junon was more or less a military town by then, though, so maybe they were used to it.

Cloud stood, unmoving and feeling weirdly naked, wishing that the entrance to the Junon base wasn't just a set of bare grey steps. A couple more civilians passed by, giving him curious looks when they caught sight of him hovering aimlessly by the doors to the base.

He dropped his eyes.

He could vaguely remember a time when he didn't instinctively hide the way his eyes glowed. He'd probably have grinned back at them like a fool. He wasn't sure when it had all changed, actually.

Maybe it had been when Angeal had  _used_  him.

He forced his hands to unclench.

He smelled like he'd been deep fried, and there was so much dirt ground into his skin that it was starting to feel like an exoskeleton. He'd fallen while he'd been sliding down the cliff after Hollander. It hadn't been far from the bottom, but he'd slipped and landed hard enough that he'd thought he'd cracked his ass before rolling down the last ten feet in a cloud of dust, rock chips, and unintelligible curses. He'd lain at the bottom, half-buried in rubble, for a few minutes. He'd been waiting until the spinning, flashing lights dissipated before crawling to his feet.

At least Hollander hadn't been hard to find.

Cloud's eyes felt like there was grit lining the inside of his lids, gouging sandpaper lines down his eyeballs. He felt heavy. Then again, it'd been like that for a long time now.

Hollander hadn't looked very good. He hadn't tried to move the man after he'd called for a lift. There hadn't been a lot of blood on the outside, really, but it had been the longest twenty minutes—years—of Cloud's life, sitting there on his useless hands while he watched the bruise blacken half of the scientist's head.

Now, shifting awkwardly as he waited outside the base after they'd kicked him out of the medical centre, Cloud scowled down at the grime on his boots.

It wasn't like he'd really cared about Hollander. He hadn't even met the man until the shit had already hit the fan, and by that point, he'd had other things on his mind. It was the way Tseng hadn't particularly cared if the man came back alive or not, only that he came back. That was pretty much the only reason Cloud wanted the scientist to live, if only as a nice little  _fuck-you_  to the assholes in the Turks.

He scuffed a heel at the concrete underfoot.

"Nice shiner, Soldier boy."

Cloud grunted, a hand coming up automatically to his face. The tight skin felt hot, and he winced at the stab of pain. The grimace he made pulled at the bruise and made it hurt, too, so he ended up pressing his palm into the side of his cheek. It felt relatively cool against the tissue.

Then, there were thin fingers prodding at the bruise, and he hissed as he flinched backward.

Cissnei only made an impatient noise, reaching up to grab his chin. Then, she clicked her tongue and dropped her hands.

"You're going to be swollen for a while."

"Yeah, thanks," Cloud muttered.

"Well," she said, smiling like they weren't surrounded by the remnants of mass destruction, "the good news is that Hollander's alive. The bad news is that Professor Hojo doesn't think he's going to wake up again. Too much damage to some part of his brain or something."

Cloud didn't know what to say to that.

The Turk wasn't looking at him anymore, anyway. Cloud followed her gaze.

A couple of MPs were manhandling the remains of one of the big spinner bots onto the back of a truck. One of them seemed to be having issues with his gloves slipping on the metal shell, and the other was watching impatiently.

Judging by the distant look on Cissnei's face, she wasn't really watching them, either.

"I wonder what Hollander's objective was," she said absently.

" _My children!"_ The ragged cry echoed in Cloud's head and he had to fight the way his breath tried to catch. He settled for another grunt.

She turned to him, nothing but open curiosity in her eyes. "He didn't say anything to you?"

Like Cloud was falling for that one. She was a  _Turk_. He shrugged. "No, nothing."

And shit. Something unidentifiable crossed her face, just for a moment, and Cloud knew that she was aware of his lie.

He hadn't meant to lie for Hollander. It wouldn't do him much good, anyway. But the fact that it had been for Angeal and Genesis, and after everything he'd found out about what happened to the two Firsts, he'd...

They were Soldiers. They were  _Soldier_. They'd wanted it to be  _over_.

Soldier wasn't about ShinRa. Not anymore. Not after Modeoheim, after Wutai, after every fucking thing they'd taken from him.

And Cissnei was still eyeing him.

Eventually, she smiled, but this one was just a sharp cut across her face. "Paranoid, aren't you? What happened to you, Strife? You used to be so cute." There was a hint of warning in her eyes, but it didn't look like she was going to press the issue. It wasn't as if they didn't already  _know_.

They were Turks.

"Why don't you ask Kunsel?" Cloud spat, suddenly sullen.

"Who?"

"Soldier Second? Super helpful? Turk dog?" He  _really_  shouldn't be saying this. He really shouldn't—

"What?"

Cloud let the confusion contort his face. "What do you mean, what?"

"Why would we involve a Soldier in Turk operations?" It was the way she said it, absently, like she wasn't really paying attention, that made Cloud stop cold. "We're a bit busy, anyway."

A hot, smothering feeling was rising in his chest.

She was still talking. Something about her partner.

Right, Tseng had said her partner was away, hadn't he?

"That eco-terrorist group?" Cloud said, trying to keep up. Well, Robertsson was involved in that bit of Turk business now.

The look she gave him was completely non-committal. Fucking Turk.

"She left her kid sister behind, though." Cissnei smiled again, and Cloud had to blink, his mind ripped away from Kunsel and the knowledge that he  _hadn't_ — He was such a piece of shit.

There was a weird edge to the Turk's smile that he'd never seen before. It wasn't like he knew Cissnei that well, anyway, but from what little he'd seen, she was as bad as Tseng. Whereas Tseng did a great impression of some kind of wax effigy, Cissnei hid everything under calm, friendly control. She must have been damn tired, Cloud realized, finally noticing the whiteness around her eyes and mouth. He wasn't the only one who'd been haring off after things intent on burning Junon down to sea level the whole night.

Cissnei gave him a look again, and Cloud became aware that she'd said something.

"Huh?" he said, eloquently.

The Turk laughed briefly.

Cloud felt his face flush.

"Elena," she said, shrugging like she didn't care that Cloud had been zoning out, but there it was again. That faint crust on her voice. "I said her name's Elena. My partner's little sister."

"Oh."

"Little brat, really." That smile again. "She wants to join the Department—"

"Turks?" Okay, that came out a bit incredulous.

Cissnei ignored him, "But we're always having to drag her ass out of whatever hot water that she's landed herself in for the day." She didn't really seem to be talking to him anymore. She was still watching the MPs puttering around the scrap metal piles on the street, and her voice was low with some kind of quiet vehemence that had Cloud staring. He wasn't even sure she realized what she was saying, or if it was just the exhaustion that coloured her tone. "And it wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the way she  _tries_  so hard. It's painful to watch."

Ah, Cloud realized. He recognized this.

It really sucked, being left behind.

"It's not her fault, you know," Cloud interrupted.

Cissnei stopped. Her eyes narrowed. "What?"

"That your partner left."

The impassive look on her face didn't shift. Cloud felt his mouth go dry.

Fuck. Fuck him and his foot in his mouth and inability to stop sticking his nose into shit like this and just  _fuck_.

Her expression stayed wooden, and Cloud tried not to swallow visibly. As the silence dragged on, the nagging compulsion to fill it started digging into his head like a toothache. "She probably wanted to be sure that Elena would be okay."

_You fucking little shit, Strife, what the fuck do you think you're doing._

Too late now. "She wanted you to take care of her sister, right?" Cloud tried for a reassuring smile as he groped for the words that would say what he meant, even as in his head, the furious voice kept throwing imprecations. "I mean, I guess. She trusted you—"

"You should smile more, Soldier boy," Cissnei said, whip-sharp and acerbic.

Cloud froze.

"It might help you hide how angry you are all the time," Cissnei said derisively, and she walked away.

* * *

Cloud didn't see Cissnei after that, not until he was sent back to Midgar. Even then, it had been in passing, while Tseng handed him his shipping orders.

"What about the President?" he'd asked.

Cissnei had just looked on with polite disinterest as Tseng nodded at him. "The executives are on their way back, as well. Good job on covering security."

Cloud hadn't been able to tell at all if there'd been a note of sarcasm in that.

The trip had been a dull one, but at least mercifully fast as the chopper cut over the mountains. Cloud had stared at the haze of smog in the distance, over his city, and wondered if he'd actually really noticed it before. That, and the way the land was turning into desert all around the valley.

He'd tried not to think about the way his eyes had skittered away from that black cliff overhanging the road back home.

When they'd landed, he'd been told to stand by, and that they were processing the data he'd retrieved in that Wutai base in the desert, and then he'd been left alone on the heli-pad, and...

Nothing.

Two days had passed.

He'd spent most of them in the Soldier gym, doing mindless reps on one of the machines or other until he'd caught the Second waiting next in line trying to be surreptitious as he gave Cloud an evil eye.

So he'd gone and taken a couple of short missions killing little mako-saturated balls of crazy. They'd made shrill squeaks when he spitted them that made him feel just a little bit uncomfortable. Then, he'd hung around the Soldier lounge trying really hard not to brood or get dramatic—'cause apparently he was  _angry all the time_ —and generally made a nuisance of himself until he'd gotten the summons to the General's office.

Theoretically, he'd known that Sephiroth had an office. All the officers got one, even if it was just a cubby somewhere on the administrative floors. Hell,  _he_  had an office. He'd just been determined never to be in it, because no matter how aimlessly he wandered ShinRa, he couldn't think of anything worse than sitting alone in an empty room staring at a window that wouldn't open.

So, trying not to feel like a truant kid called to the principal's, he trudged into the fancy glass elevators that went up the highest into the building, and swiped his ID badge at the sensor.

Sephiroth's office was pretty damn big, he discovered. Not as big as Lazard's was, but then again, Lazard spent all his time in there. There was just a desk, a couple of chairs pushed against the wall, and a tall stand against the back wall. Sephiroth's ridiculously long sword was currently occupying it.

The General himself was folded behind a couple of neat piles of paper, scowling down at whatever he was reading. He barely looked up when Cloud wandered in with a cursory knock.

There'd been a guard outside the door, making his rounds slowly through the floor, but the guy had only stopped in his tracks and stood stiffly to attention while Cloud passed. Being, technically, the Soldier department's second in command had its perks, he supposed.

He peered out the long window set into one of the walls. The way it was placed, the only way someone could get a view of Sephiroth inside was aerially. Outside, though, he could see past the edge of the plate. He prodded at the blinds, but couldn't figure out where the control mechanism was. For all he knew, Sephiroth had a remote stashed somewhere.

There wasn't any sound except for the hum of the air conditioner and the scritch of Sephiroth's pen behind him.

Cloud grabbed one of the chairs from the wall and dropped it in front of the desk. He sat, leaning an elbow on the edge of the dark wood.

"One moment," Sephiroth said distractedly, and Cloud shrugged.

He peered at the sheet on top of one of the piles, having had plenty of experience trying to read papers upside down on Lazard's desk while Angeal—

Stop it.

He shook his head, reached out, and snagged the form.

It was some random complaint about paper towels clogging the urinals in the Soldier gym.

Cloud couldn't figure out why the hell someone would decide to send this shit to Sephiroth of all people, and then he realized that with Lazard... gone, all of his paperwork must have been funnelled to the man.

Well.

Sephiroth had an immaculately organized wire basket thing full of pens and stuff sitting at the edge of his desk. After a moment's inspection, Cloud selected a fat, black permanent marker.

He'd just finished adding a couple of curly pubes to the terrible picture of a dick he'd drawn over the complaint when Sephiroth noticed what he was doing.

"What the fuck, Strife."

Cloud couldn't help it. He sniggered.

Sephiroth gave him an aggravated look as he snatched the sheet from him.

"Sorry," Cloud said, fighting the grin trying to take over his face. It still wasn't as funny as the first time he'd heard Sephiroth actually swear.

Sephiroth didn't look like he believed him for a minute.

"Any word on the eco-terrorist front?" Cloud changed the subject. He hadn't heard from Robertsson for a week now. Then again, the Second wasn't exactly fond of keeping him updated or any of that "touchy-feely shit."

A thin frown crossed Sephiroth's face. "No. There has been considerable activity in General Affairs for a few days, but they have yet to release any information."

And the Turks thought  _he_  was paranoid.

Cloud pushed aside the uncomfortable feeling in his gut at the thought that they did kind of have a point.

"What is all this?" He gestured at the piles of papers, instead.

Sephiroth didn't say anything for a moment, sitting up straight to look at Cloud. The cat-slits of his pupils seemed to flutter, and Cloud realized that the General was more agitated than he let on. The man's eyes closed. Some of the long, silver hair slipped from the ear he'd tucked it behind, floating up a bit when he exhaled. "Most of them are Hollander's records," he said, finally.

A chill gripped the back of Cloud's neck.

"On his work," the General continued. "I... had thought that Project G referred to Genesis, but I was mistaken."

"What?" Cloud said faintly.

"Project G was the codename for Gillian Hewley."

"Angeal's mother?"

"She was the experimental subject. She was the one who had been enhanced."

Cloud thought about the small woman with Angeal's eyes. There hadn't been any glow, there. Her hand, that time she had touched his, had felt soft and papery, thin in that way that came with age he'd always associated with people who were much older than she had been.

"She passed the modifications to Angeal when he was born," Sephiroth said.

Cloud was light headed. Like he hadn't been breathing or something. "Genesis?"

"He had been a secondary subject. He received Gillian's cells shortly after birth. But it was Angeal who had been the main product of Hollander's experimentation."

Cloud couldn't move. His eyes had dropped, when he couldn't look at Sephiroth anymore, and they'd focused on the grip the General had on his pen. The skin over his knuckles was white. Cloud thought he could hear the faint grind of plastic warping under pressure. "Angeal," he said, softly.

"No doubt he had discovered this for himself, before he lured you to Modeoheim."

Cloud's head snapped up. He glared, trying to focus on anything besides the roaring in his ears.

"You know exactly why he drew you to Modeoheim, Cloud," Sephiroth said quietly.

The Buster sword felt like it was pressing him to the ground, like the spot under his chair had decided to become magnetized and was trying to draw him down and crush him against the bedrock. Cloud shifted his weight.

Fuck. He'd told himself that he wasn't going to get dramatic. He'd been doing pretty well, he thought. Pretending.

Damn Angeal for always insisting that it wasn't heavy.

He hadn't... He hadn't exactly decided that he was going to carry it. He didn't know why he was carrying it. It'd just... Angeal had put it into his hands. And Sephiroth had left it in his hands.

Angeal had never used it. Not until the end. It had just been something that was always there. He wasn't really sure that Angeal even wanted him to use it. Or maybe he'd wanted it to be put into a case somewhere. It felt too big for him sometimes. Too heavy. Like he was some kid play acting in his mother's clothes and the shoes just didn't fit on his feet. Cloud knew, too. There were people who  _expected_ shit from him, and he was trying, really. He was trying to be everything they needed, after all the people who  _could_ do this were gone, but he just knew he was faking it, and faking it hard, and it  _wasn't going to work_. He'd fuck it all up.

He didn't want to see their faces. When they realized that he was faking.

"Cloud," Sephiroth said.

He looked up when the man didn't continue.

Sephiroth was staring into empty space. "When... Angeal died. And Genesis," he said presently. And stopped again.

Cloud got it, though. "They smiled," he said to the blank wood of the desk. "They were smiling." His voice creaked.

Sephiroth nodded. A muscle jumped in his cheek. He still didn't look at Cloud, though. He didn't ask the next question, the one that always went something like "Are you alright?" Because then Cloud would have to lie, and he'd have to ask it back, in return, of Sephiroth.

So he didn't ask. And Cloud didn't lie.

"What about this gift of the goddess thing Genesis was always talking about?" he said instead, so he wouldn't have to think about how it wasn't  _fair_ , that Angeal could manipulate him like that and not be around to have to  _deal with it_.

There was a rustle. Sephiroth was looking down at the sheets again. He wasn't reading, though. Cloud could tell. His eyes weren't moving at all. "I doubt Genesis knew for certain, himself. But I'm starting to believe that he meant you."

"Huh?"

"Or rather, what you represent."

"I represent something?"

"Soldier," Sephiroth said.

Cloud met the acid mako eyes.

"Honour," the General continued. "Perhaps even hope." The words were matter-of-fact, but the bitterness couldn't wash out of the short almost-laugh that followed. "I suppose, given the physical and mental deterioration those two were suffering, hearing someone insist that they weren't monsters helped. Especially if that person was able to end it for them."

Cloud felt his face crease. "But—"

"You'd have to ask them for specifics," Sephiroth said, something harsh in his tone.

Cloud subsided.

Sephiroth was quiet. He wasn't looking at Cloud, or anything, really, but he seemed to have something on his mind.

He waited.

When Sephiroth spoke next, it was to the wall again, his voice slow and low. "Knowing what I do about Angeal and Genesis now, I cannot dismiss the possibility that a similar degradation will occur in me. It has always been an open secret that I am a product of the Science department."

Cloud bit his lip. He'd heard those stories, too. At first, when he'd just gotten to ShinRa. Then when he'd met Angeal, they'd stopped. Like people had slapped their mouths shut when they saw the First. And Cloud was realizing that he'd  _really_  had his head up his ass if he hadn't noticed the sharp edges to Angeal back then.

"I have no memories prior to that laboratory."

"You think your mom was part of an experiment, too?" Cloud said, shuffling in place.

"I... cannot say. I do not know if the experiments that produced me are similar to those Angeal underwent. Hojo was in charge of my development, not Hollander." He paused, looking as if he'd tasted something unpleasant. "Hojo tells me that my enhancements are due to my mother's legacy."

"What does that even mean?" Cloud frowned.

"Jenova," Sephiroth said.

The name sent a weird shiver down Cloud's spine.

Jenova.

The scratching in the back of his mind intensified, like something was trying to get out.

_Jenova_.

"She was a Cetra, a descendent of the race that we currently call Ancients."

Cloud screwed his face up. There was an echo in his head. Like he'd heard this all before. Like he'd  _known_.

Wrong.

He's wrong.

Shut the fuck up, he thought viciously at the voice. They'd had an agreement. The ghostly bastard would pipe down, and he wouldn't take a dive off the ShinRa building and leave them both without a body to occupy.

_Wrong,_  the voice hissed spitefully, fading into nothing.

"Cetra?"

"The Cetra were supposedly able to communicate with the Lifestream, the source of mako. They were closer to the planet than humans of today."

"Oh." Cloud gnawed on the inside of his cheek. That did explain a lot of things. Why Sephiroth was so... Sephiroth, for one. None of the other Firsts had been anything like him. "What happened to her?"

"I don't know. Suffice to say that she is no longer present." Sephiroth looked down at his hands. His skin was painfully white under the fluorescent lighting, especially where it was usually covered by his gloves. "Cloud, I am telling you this because I cannot discount the possibility that my circumstances are similar to those of Genesis and Angeal. They were my," here he paused, frowning as he thought, "my brothers, and the strongest people I know." He blinked. "Knew," he corrected. "And in the end, they turned to you for aid. Should such mental deterioration appear in me..."

Sephiroth didn't finish.

Cloud didn't need him to finish. He knew exactly where this was going, exactly what Sephiroth was going to ask him to do, and—

... Again, came the disjointed whisper in his head.

Never again.

He could feel his hands shaking. They'd been shaking for a while, since Sephiroth started talking like every word was a splinter being wrenched out, and—

He flipped out.

"No!" he shouted. Sephiroth's eyes snapped to him. "No, you do not  _get to say_  shit like that! I'm not some—some kind of personal clean-up crew here to mop up the messes you leave behind. All of you! What is this, the world according to you?" Sephiroth looked like he was going to say something, but Cloud raised his chin and kept going. "We're Soldier, right?  _Soldier_. You get my back, and I've got yours!"

Stunned silence.

"Always," Cloud muttered, resentfully.

His stomach was twisting itself into knots. He wasn't really sure how much of it was the lingering rage—it was dying fast—and how much of it was frozen terror. He'd, fuck, he'd yelled in Sephiroth's face.

His face burned hot as he stared down at his knees.

Sephiroth wouldn't gut him. Probably.

But he'd just about alienated every single person who'd still talk to him, and this was his  _boss_ , and...

He wasn't taking back any of it.

The silence stretched for centuries.

Then, quietly, "Noted."

Cloud flinched. Then, his brain caught up to his ears, and his forehead creased. "What?"

"I accept these terms."

He lifted his head to see Sephiroth watching him, paperwork forgotten under his hands.

"Oh," Cloud said eventually, mouth curving. "Okay."

There was that familiar, quick tip of the head, and Sephiroth turned back to his work. "I called you here because I have a task for you, actually."

"Oh? Oh. Yeah, sure, what is it?"

"It'll take a bit longer."

Cloud scowled at the top of the other First's head, feeling the frayed edges of his nerves start to settle. "You're not ready yet? I could have come by later, you know." Yeah. He could do this.

Now that he knew he wasn't the only one faking it.

"And you have something else you need to do?"

Cloud didn't say anything for a moment. "Touché."

There was a smug hum.

The General's office was warm. The lights buzzed overhead, a barely audible drone over the louder purr of the ventilation. Outside the one window, Cloud thought he could see a faint shaft of sunlight piercing through the cloud cover. It looked like it was painted onto smoke. Paper crackled softly beside him.

Cloud found his eyelids drooping.

He jumped, suddenly, at the sound of something snapping shut. He wasn't sure how much time had passed.

"I'd like you to take this to the Information Technology department."

It was a thick manila envelope. Cloud looked at the stiff paper, and then at Sephiroth. And then back at the paper. "What am I, your errand boy?"

"It's in relation to the information you retrieved from the Junon attack," Sephiroth said seriously. "I hesitate to leave the data in anyone else's hands."

Cloud blinked.

The General seemed to decide that he might as well continue working as his subordinate thought about that statement, because he bent down over his papers again. Cloud watched him flip a page.

"You could probably get an administrative aide, you know. There are plenty of people who'd jump at the chance."

"A lot of sensitive information ends up here," Sephiroth said. "I can't simply hire a secretary." He paused, eyeing Cloud. "The President has been looking into filling Lazard's position, though. It wouldn't be a director, not now that Soldier has passed into Heidegger's hands, but as an administrative head."

Cloud didn't bother hiding the face he made at the mention of Heidegger.

"You have the experience necessary to decide what is in the best interests of Soldier," Sephiroth continued calmly, seemingly ignoring the way Cloud was starting to stare at him. "The rest is simply common sense. I don't see why I shouldn't recommend you for the job."

Cloud knew his mouth was open. "What? You can't be serious. I'd probably okay something like kittens in the gym or something accidentally."

"Yes," Sephiroth said. "You would."

Cloud started to protest again, but then he finally noticed the way Sephiroth was watching him. "Oh, ha ha," he said flatly, hopping to his feet. "You know, your jokes would be funnier if they weren't constantly at my expense."

"Seems good to me."

"Yeah, well, I think you need a hobby."

Sephiroth actually smiled at that. It was crooked and more patronizing than not, but Cloud couldn't help grinning in response.

"Fine, I'll take your stuff down to the techs for you," Cloud said, holding out a hand for the folder.

The thick paper spine pressed into his palm. "Make yourself useful and tell the custodial staff to put up a sign about paper towels in the facilities or something," Sephiroth said, holding onto the files for a second longer.

"Sir, yes, sir." Cloud groused. "Anything else, sir, while I'm at it? Can I spit into some coffee for you?"

"Just keep the information safe, Soldier."

"Yessir."

Cloud was almost out the door when Sephiroth raised his voice. "Thank you, Cloud."

That...

He paused, looking back. Then he shrugged. "What are friends for, yeah?"

Sephiroth smiled again.

* * *

He'd pulled a mission hunting down a Midgar Zolom.

According to the intel, it was a big one, faster and more aggressive than the others haunting the swamp in front of the Mithral caves. It had already taken a couple of miners by surprise—and they'd spent their entire lives learning to avoid the giant snakes—taking the leg off of one of the men. The other one had disappeared under the murky waters.

He'd gotten a small clump of Seconds and Thirds, a mission packet on his PHS, and a pat on the back before getting pointed out the gates.

As he stood there in the open desert, Midgar's bulk looming behind him, he glanced at his men. One of the Thirds shuffled his feet minutely. There was only one Second, actually, now that he really looked. The man stood with the rest of the Soldiers, facing him. He was maybe a hair taller than Cloud, his purples moulded to his body like an old, familiar friend.

The Second's face was covered by his helmet, but Cloud would recognize him anywhere.

"Kunsel?"

Kunsel's mouth seemed to work a bit, and then he nodded. "Sir."

Odin's balls.

* * *

He hadn't pushed the men very hard. The Zoloms were fast in the water, but on land they moved about as well as arthritic seals, so it wasn't going anywhere. The mines had been shut down, too, until they could deal with the monster. They reached the swamp just before nightfall.

The water was an opaque brown, some kind of film on it gleaming an iridescent green in the dying light of the sun. Cloud was suddenly glad that he'd forced the men to stop at the Chocobo ranch to fill up on water and supplies. He had a feeling that he'd have to get his stomach pumped if he tried to drink this water, Soldier or not.

They stood at the edge uneasily.

It was one thing to face a thirty-foot serpent hissing and lunging at them. At least then he had something to hit. It was another thing entirely when the surface of the swamp was mirror flat and empty, and they had no idea  _where_  the damn thing was going to spring out.

"So," one of the Thirds said hesitantly. "Now what? We stomp around until it comes out?"

"You know they come up  _under_  you, right?" another one murmured.

Cloud turned around to look at them. They snapped to attention, each one of them watching him like he had the answers written in neon across his forehead.

And Kunsel, fucking Kunsel, stepped forward toward the swamp.

"I'll bait it out, sir."

There was a bark of a laugh, loud over the flat water. It had come from him, Cloud realized. "Yeah, no," he said, glaring at the shell of the Second's helmet. "You lot stay here. I'll go in."

He saw Kunsel hesitate.

"I'm more likely to be able to react fast enough when it goes in for the kill," Cloud reminded.

Kunsel paused again. Then, he said, "If I were to cast a directed Quake, I think I could dislodge it from the water and get it onto land, where it'd be more vulnerable to attacks.

Cloud thought about this. "That's a good idea, actually. Okay."

He'd  _missed_  this.

Kunsel was one of the most intelligent people he knew. He'd had a few missions with the man before, and there'd been too many instances in which he'd had to rely on Kunsel to bail him out when he'd gotten in over his head. When Kunsel said something, he'd learned long ago to just listen.

He glanced at the man's bracer. "What else do you have?"

"Hmm? Cura, Shell, a Thunder."

Cloud eyed the water all around them. The grass was squeaking under their boots, damp from the swamp seeping up to the ground. "Maybe not the thunder." He took a slow step into the tepid water. Nothing jumped out at him.

He let out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and glanced back at the shore. "Ready?"

Kunsel stood right at the edge. He nodded tightly.

Cloud waded in.

The water dragged at his boots, making each step excruciatingly slow. Lethargic, fat ripples spread out from around his legs, rolling across the black surface. He felt like he was disturbing some placid underworld. It couldn't be that far from the truth. A lot of people had died in this swamp over the years.

He trudged on, trying very hard not to turn around and see how far he'd gone.

"Come on, you motherfucker," he muttered, kicking at the silt around his ankles. "Where are you?"

He flinched, whipping around to his left. He'd saw something move, he thought. There was nothing but the waves he'd left in his wake. Squinting around, Cloud scanned the quiet swamp. The waves were interfering with each other, peaks and troughs coming together in ways that amplified some of them and cancelled others out entirely. It made it hard to tell if he'd caused all of them.

There were a lot of waves. Just little ripples by the time they'd spread out far enough from him. Cloud peered into the twilight. He hadn't gone over there, had he?

So where had those bumps in the surface come from?

Cloud's breath caught in his throat.

Shit.

The ripples were rising, coming together to form a frothing V-shape that was charging straight at him.

Shit shit  _shit_!

Cloud threw himself to the side, stumbling as the water yanked at his feet. He tipped over, some of the fetid water splashing up into his face as he windmilled his arms in an attempt to keep his balance. The droplets smelled foul.

They weren't nearly as bad, though, as the stink of rot coming from the truck-sized maw that had yawned open where he'd been standing a moment ago. Breathy hissing filled the air, making his ears ring.

"Kunsel!" he shouted. " _Kunsel!_ "

The roar he'd thought was coming from the snake's mouth started echoing in the mud under his feet, and he staggered. He hadn't thought about this part, he realized. An icy feeling slunk into this gut. He'd be caught in the spell, too. He wasn't sure how he'd keep his balance, not with the thick water pulling at his legs.

The ground bucked under him again, once, and then one more time, viciously, and he found himself lifted up into the air, thrown by the force of earthquake.

Grass came at him, spreading fast, and Cloud barely had the presence of mind to tuck and roll.

He landed hard, tumbling to a stop as damp grass squelched under his arms.

"You alright?"

Kunsel was crouched over him, breathing hard.

Swallowing his heart back down again, Cloud nodded, accepting the hand up. Clammy sweat caked itself to his skin, wherever mud wasn't prickling as it dried in the air.

The Zolom was out of the water, too. Its monstrous coils twisted and glistened as it thrashed. It was too heavy to support its own weight out of the water. A couple of the Thirds were trying to find a good angle to sink their blades into the thing's head, but it kept moving. Its tree-trunk of a tail scythed around, sending Soldiers scattering to duck. Another was on support, it seemed. The stocky man was alternating between the green glitter of Cure and the crackle of covering fire. The snake reared up just a bit, fangs gaping wide.

Cloud charged forward, his hand bringing the Buster around desperately.

The force of the lunge had Cloud sliding backward on the wet grass. There was a slick grinding sound as the monster's open mouth strained against the flat of his blade. Fangs thicker than his legs flexed in the air, venom beading slowly from their tips.

Cloud turned his head.

The man the snake had been trying to bite stood stiffly behind him, mouth open and moving soundlessly.

" _Move_ , Soldier!" Cloud bellowed.

This seemed to snap the Third out of it, and the guy darted out of the way as Cloud heaved the snake up off of his sword.

"Now what?" he directed this at Kunsel.

The Second shrugged lopsidedly, pulling his broadsword into a two-handed grip.

"Sounds good to me!" Cloud shouted, darting in under the snake's head for a heavy slash. The Buster scored a weeping gash into the monster's hide. The snake jerked under the blow. Translucent scales shattered and sprayed along the sword's trajectory, and it made a keening sound as it writhed.

It recovered enough to snap at him, and Cloud whirled out of the way. He hacked at whatever part of the massive body he could reach. Soon, the grass underfoot was stained a muddy red. The snake was looking a bit ragged, but it hadn't slowed down at all.

Cloud leaped over a swipe of its tail, stabbing forward with his blade as it passed. The sword bit down into the snake's body, and it let out another shriek. He landed with both feet on the slick scales, planted his boots against the sheath of pure muscle, and yanked himself and his sword backward. The Buster came free with the sound of air ripping.

Enraged, the snake let out a roar that filled Cloud's nose with the smell of decaying fish, and it began to rear up into the sky. It was rocking from side to side as it rose, shuffling its massive vertebrae into place.

Cloud stared up at the black eyes. Vaguely, he thought that this must be what it felt like to be a sad little rodent looking up into the hypnotic eyes of a predator. One of the ones whose only role in life was to end as a brief scream.

"Shell," he croaked.

"What?"

"Shell, Kunsel!"

The Second peered down at his bracer, looking puzzled.

Cloud spun around and started running for the man. "Shell, shell,  _shell_!" he chanted.

Behind him, he could hear the thin whistling, the intake of breath into enormous lungs. If he looked, he knew, he'd see the pinprick of red inside the thing's throat, growing, catching fire.

He slammed his hand onto Kunsel's bracer, activating the materia under his palm. The magical barrier sprang to life, visible only in the warping of light, a heat-haze of fuzz. And the heat-pressure of the Zolom's attack steamrolled over them, trying to flatten them to the ground as the air crisped all around them and the  _sound_  dropped through several registers of eardrum-shattering noise to turn to a ringing vibration that they could  _feel_  more than hear.

Cloud stood, half-hunched, a shoulder facing the Zolom as he poured magic into the spell.

The snake's attack was shaving away layers off the spell just as fast as he was adding them on, and he was straining because it was hard enough making the damn thing sufficiently strong to take the brunt of the fire, but it had to be big enough, too, to cover the Thirds hunched in the grass behind them. And fuck, he didn't think he could keep it up, not with the way the shell was cracking and chipping under the sheer volume of snake breath, and the spell was snapping away, biting tendrils twanging like elastics at the edges of his control—

Kunsel's free hand clamped down around his wrist, fresh energy flowing through him into the materia.

Then the pressure was gone, the shell shattered once it didn't have to repel the fire magic anymore, and Cloud was teetering, almost drunk with the lack of oxygen getting to his brain because his nostrils felt like they'd been singed and the air was still boiling him alive.

A guttural sound forcing its way out of his throat, Cloud raised the Buster sword in his hand. Orange light flickered in his peripheral vision, washed out because of the red tinge soaking through the heated air, but it was there, licking along his blade as he leaped straight up towards the Zolom. He brought the Buster around in a two-handed cleave as gravity snagged hold of him and gave a merciless tug.

Cloud landed, his knees locking up on him as his legs shook.

He didn't try to move for a little while.

A smudge of dark armour came up behind him, and Kunsel was standing at his shoulder, ogling the enormous snake. It was almost neat, the way the two halves had sheared apart from each other straight down the centre of the thing's body. They tipped over towards each side, drooping down onto the ground. A muddy mess was starting to slide from the snake's exposed intestinal tract, though. It must have been eating the gunk coating the bottom of that swamp or something.

"Holy shit," Kunsel said quietly.

Panting, Cloud agreed.

* * *

He didn't even try the trek back to Midgar.

There'd been some burns, even with the big shell, and Cloud was wincing sympathetically as he poured cold canteen water over the red blisters. The Third had his arm out and steady under the flow, but his teeth were grinding audibly. The swamp water would probably make shit worse before it got better, so he'd gotten one of the other guys to put together some water-soaked pads to strap to the burns.

"How's it feel?" he asked the Third. It was the bulky spell-caster.

"Could be worse, sir," came the wry response.

Cloud snickered.

Curative magic was useless against burns. It just healed the tissue damage so that the heat baked into the skin could burn it all over again. First, they had to bring the temperature down.

The night was sticky with moisture that licked up body heat so that the passing breeze could siphon it out of their bodies. Cloud could still see the way heads were lolling back, though. Exhaustion was taking its toll on the Soldiers.

So he'd called for a makeshift camp, and he'd gotten them unpacked and wrapped up in heavy blankets before letting them doze off, leaning against each other. After the war, it was hard to say what felt safer, a Soldier's own bed, or the solidity of a comrade's back against his own. Even this close to civilization—if the Chocobo ranch could be called that—there were still wild animals prowling the dark, though, so Cloud had grabbed his own blanket roll, found a good-sized rock, and hunkered down onto it for the night.

The moon was a thin sliver that did little more than give the mist depth, but Cloud didn't need that much external light to see, anyway.

He heard the footsteps come up behind him. Kunsel wasn't trying to be silent.

They stopped just behind him, but Cloud didn't turn around. He stared out into the darkness.

The Second cleared his throat softly, and it sounded almost as awkward as Cloud felt. Chewing on the inside of his lip, Cloud shut his eyes and waited.

"Sir, I, uh, apologize."

Cloud's eyes slammed open again.

"Given the circumstances, I realize I stepped out of my bounds when I realized that you'd met Angeal that time. I thought, well, not really sure what I thought, but—"

Cloud twisted around, blanket falling in a heap. "What the fuck are  _you_  apologizing for?" He rubbed a palm roughly over a temple. " _I'm_  the one that flew off the handle, and I thought," Cloud stopped. "Ugh, a lot of stupid shit, really." He'd unconsciously parroted the Second, he realized.

Kunsel's mouth was still open.

"I'm an idiot, Kunsel."

Silence.

"And if you call me 'sir' one more time, I'm going to flush your entire stash of booze down the toilet."

Another moment of nothing. And then Kunsel's mouth twitched. "That the best you could come up with?"

"Give me time," Cloud threatened. "I can get  _inventive_."

But he was grinning.

* * *

He should have forced the march back to Midgar.

He should have left them. He'd been plenty capable of getting back to Midgar quickly by himself. He could move faster than them. And it wasn't as if Kunsel wouldn't have been able to protect them.

He should have  _gone_.

Maybe if he'd gotten back the night before, he wouldn't have walked into the noise and chaos, and  _Reno_  had his arm in a fucking splint. Reno was the slipperiest piece of shit he'd ever met, and he had his arm in a  _splint_.

And maybe if he'd gotten back the night before, Tseng wouldn't have come up to him, something that looked suspiciously like sympathy in his dark eyes, and told him that he was sorry.

That Robertsson was dead.

Maybe it wouldn't have made a difference, anyway, if he'd gotten back the night before. Maybe he'd have heard of the miniature war on the Northern continent—Icicle fucking Inn or something—and gone off on some harebrained rush, and he'd get there, and Robertsson would still be dead.

They tried to explain. Something about some kind of birds—

No, Ravens.

He could hear the capital on the name.

_Ravens_. Like that made it so much better that Robertsson had gone to help the Turks, acting like he was offended that Cloud had asked him to be careful, and he was  _dead_.

They had had someone. The terrorists. Someone like Hollander, who'd been able to take Soldiers and turn them into Ravens. Rip out their minds and wills and rename them after some fucking stupid birds, and Robertsson had gone in because he was—fucking hypocrite—too much of a hero, apparently, and he was  _dead_.

The Turks were still saying something to him. There were steady hands on his arms, sure and professional. Almost like the blood and the scabs on the knuckles resting against his skin weren't there, and Cloud was fucking  _done_  listening.

He'd heard of the term "seeing red." He'd thought it was idiotic, way too innocuous a term to encompass the surge of  _everything_  inside of him.

He didn't see anything red. It didn't happen.

It was with startling clarity that he decided that he was going to kill them all.

* * *

One terrorist base started looking like every other terrorist base after a while. They all seemed to have something against light, for one. It was alright. Very little could slow him down these days.

The dark halls were silent behind Cloud. Nothing moved.

Well, nothing could move.

There was a scrape on the inside of his wrist. It itched, the way it was throbbing. Someone had tried to disarm him by kicking his wrist. The heavy soles on the boots had taken off a layer of skin, but Cloud didn't let go of his sword that easily. He'd turned into the blow, let the momentum carry him around, and brought the Buster down. He'd felt something thick and disgusting and obscenely good at the brief surprise in the man's eyes.

Cloud brought his wrist up to his mouth, and he stopped.

He dropped his hand again.

There was a lot more than his blood on his skin.

He glanced down at the red film over the Buster sword. Angeal had never let it get that dirty.

His eyes drifting shut, he brought the flat of the weapon up to his forehead, the way that he'd seen Angeal do sometimes. Like he was praying to the blade or something.

Nothing happened. No voices, no epiphany. Just the slow slide of congealing blood.

Cloud dropped his hands again, hunching over. His stomach lurched, and he gagged, but nothing came out.

The hilt of the Buster was sticky.

All he could smell was blood.

It was good that it hadn't been his rage that had carried him out of Midgar and far to the north. Rage wouldn't have lasted long enough.

Rage would probably have gotten him killed, too, especially after...

The Turks hadn't told him that everyone who'd followed Robertsson to Icicle hadn't been accounted for. He'd found two Thirds in the terrorist base.

Essai he'd met in Wutai, on a mission mapping out a swathe of foreign terrain that had ended up turning into a tap dance over a mine field. They'd almost passed the last stretch when there'd been a tiny, tiny click under Cloud's boot, and he'd frozen as cold sweats dampened his purples. He'd picked the Third up—it was fucking lucky that the guy hadn't been much bigger than Cloud himself—and he'd  _hurled_  the man bodily into the trees before launching himself after. His flat trajectory had only been helped by the furious explosion at his back, and he'd lodged himself into some branches that refused to give eventually, his entire uniform smoking and the tree shedding all of its stinging nuts into his hair and down his vest. They'd laughed themselves hoarse at the stupidity.

Sebastian had been on the second Wutai mission, when they'd infiltrated the base searching for the PoWs. Cloud hadn't gotten to talk to the man that much, but he'd been competent and composed when he hadn't been driving the entire squad insane with his whistling.

He'd broken them out. He was going to leave them somewhere safe while he levelled the entire base.

He wasn't sure what had made him turn around when they'd rushed him. The Buster sword had already been in his hand. Maybe it was the stilted way they'd spoken, if they'd spoken at all. Maybe it was because he'd done this before, and Geoffreys had knifed him in the back.

They didn't hear anything he said.

They were Ravens, he'd realized, too late.

They'd been Soldiers, before. People who had counted on him to get them out with their skin in one piece. People who had watched his back.

And he'd screamed himself raw, and they didn't hear a single word. Not until it was too late, and Cloud was on the ground, snow grinding into freezing mats under his knees and under the palms of his hands. It had been white, still, for a moment, until their blood had soaked through their clothes and painted it red.

The ground was frozen underneath the snow, and it had taken a long time to bury them. In the end, Cloud hadn't been able to manage more than a shallow grave. He'd found big rocks, though, the ones that ancient glaciers carried along and abandoned like marbles in the gutter. They'd been able to cover the churned earth.

Cloud had taken their swords. Soldier broadswords, standard issue. He'd had a few just like them. He'd raised them in his hands, stabbing downward into the permafrost with every bit of enhanced strength he'd acquired. They stood straight up. They didn't even budge against Cloud's yank. Essai on the left. Sebastian on the right.

Then he'd stood, taken a shuddering breath as ice scraped at the insides of his windpipe, and turned towards the terrorist base.

There were Turks waiting with a black helicopter when he came out of the hideout. Tseng, Reno, and the bald guy. Rude. Of course. They'd followed. They'd probably left the second he'd taken off, the panicked voice of the ensign who'd passed on the message trailing after him.

"Strife," Tseng said. He stopped.

There was blood on his face, Cloud remembered. It was dry now, flaking like an old scab, but it had been hot at first.

"Yeah," Cloud said dully.

"Are you okay?"

Even Reno wasn't saying anything. That was a surprise. Then again, Reno's face was still white and strained, and his other hand was cradling his immobilized arm. Must have been a bad break, Cloud thought absently. Too tricky to set in the field.

"I got one of them while he was sitting on the can," Cloud said, voice flat.

There was a pause.

"We would have needed survivors to extract information." There was a gentle note of reproach in Rude's voice.

Cloud laughed. The sound was harsh. "I'm pretty sure they would have preferred to be dead instead."

Tseng's eyes hadn't moved. "Strife, you should go back to Midgar."

"Don't worry. There were barely any people in there," Cloud said. "They must have already been evacuating. I'm sure you'll find your  _survivors_  somewhere."

* * *

Cloud was in Sephiroth's office again.

He wasn't sitting this time, though. Sephiroth hadn't offered.

He stood to perfect attention, arms straight as planks at his sides, and he stared over the General's shoulder.

"Cloud," Sephiroth was saying. "Are you listening?"

"Yessir."

ShinRa was incensed at him. That much was pretty obvious.

"I understand your loss—"

Acid leapt into his gullet at that, and his eyes snapped to Sephiroth's. But he swallowed. And swallowed again. Because yes, Sephiroth did understand. He couldn't forget that. No matter how much he wanted fist his hands into that black leather and shriek.

"But you need to be careful," the General continued, as if he hadn't noticed the way mako had surged to Cloud's eyes. "You ignored an order, left on your own, and wiped out a terrorist faction with what could be called ruthless efficiency. That's not the type of reputation the company enjoys explaining to the public."

Cloud bit back the snort at that, but it was so, so hard.

He knew exactly the difference was. The Wutai had been demons. Heartless killers. Avalanche had sympathizers, if not supporters. Avalanche was made up of people who loved the Planet. Avalanche was, no matter how distantly, the people. Avalanche was the underdog. ShinRa the aggressor.

"The news agencies are calling it an accident, but it's hard to hide that many bodies. You're dangerously close to a court martial, Strife."

"So what are you going to do with me?"

Sephiroth leaned back, the creases around his eyes becoming more pronounced as he exhaled. A gloved hand came up to rub at the bridge of his nose.

Cloud could not bring himself to care.

"We'll remove you from the public eye for a little while."

Cloud didn't respond.

"You are liked amongst the troops. It shouldn't take more than a few weeks for this to blow over."

"Give me a distance mission, then."

There was a moment of hesitation. Then, Sephiroth said, "Cloud, Soldier Second Class Robertsson's funeral is this morning." Something Cloud couldn't really decipher was in the General's tone.

He kept his gaze above Sephiroth's shoulder. "Give me a mission," he repeated.

He got a long stare.

For a moment, Cloud thought Sephiroth was going to refuse, and that he was going to have to do something that would seriously piss off a lot of people, even if he didn't know what it would be yet.

"Very well. You recall the data stick you retrieved from the Gold Saucer area? We have been analyzing it."

Cloud nodded.

"There have been reports of a large pocket of resistance in South Wutai. We've been fairly close to catching up to them several times, but someone has been feeding them information."

Cloud's eyes narrowed. "A spy?"

"We have decoded the messages on the data stick, and we may have found a meeting point."

* * *

TBC


End file.
